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THE 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



Br 

GABRIEL COMPAYRE 

\\ 

GRADUATK OF THE ECOLE NORMAL SUPii:RIEUKE, FELLOW IN 

PHILOSOPHY, DOCTOR OF LETTERS, PROFESSOR 

IN THE UNIVERSITY 



TRANSLATED BY 

WILLIAM H. PAYNE, Ph.D., LL.D. 

I 

CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE, AND PRESIDENT OF THE 
PEABODY NORMAL COLLEGE; AUTHOR OF "CHAPTERS ON SCHOOL 
SUPERVISION," ** OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE," 
AND " CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF EDU- 
CATION " ; TRANSLATOR OF COMPAYREl'S 
•'HISTOIRE DE PEDAGOGIE " AND 
"COURS DE PEDAGOGIE" 




BOSTON MDCCCXC 
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 

10 MILK STREET NEXT " THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE " 

NEW YORK CHAS. T. DILLINGHAM 
718 AND 720 Broadway 



•(2 64- 



Paris, June 13, 1890. 
Prof. W. H. PAYNE. 

Dear Sir: — Full authorization is granted you for the trans- 
lation of my Psychologie. I thank you for tlius adding my Notions 
Elementaires de Psychologie to your beautiful translations of my 
Histoire de la Pedagogic and my Lemons de Pedagogic. 

Yours, under great obligations, 

GABRIEL COMPAYRE. 



Copyright, 1890, 
By William H. Payne. 



THE ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



Though many works on Psychology have been pub- 
lished within the last few years, the feeling is still very 
general that even the best of them are not well adapted 
to the needs of teachers who are in quest of principles 
and doctrines which may serve as a basis for rational 
methods. It is to be recollected that neither the high- 
est generalizations nor the mere empirical rules of a 
science can be turned to profitable account in the way 
of practical applications ; the first are too vague to 
admit of ready interpretation and use ; and the second 
are too narrow to be fruitful in adaptations to an art 
where versatility is so necessary. A book to serve the 
needs of the general teaching class should have, it 
would seem, the following qualities : — 

1. It should contain only the essentials of psychol- 
ogy ; it should not be a cyclopaedia of psychological 
science. 

2. It should not be a work of erudition or learned 
research, designed for the specialist and the proficient ; 
but a book for the dissemination of scientific truth 
among persons who need it first of all for the applica- 
tions they can make of it. 



iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

3. It should be written in terms readily intelligible 
by ordinary readers ; it should not require any extraor- 
dinary scientific acumen or power of interpretation. 

4. As most teachers of youth are believers in the 
spirituality of the soul, and in the absolute dissimilarity 
of mind and matter, they prefer a book whose tone and 
treatment are in accord with the Christian spirit. 

It is because Compayre's Notions Elemcntaircs dc 
Psychologie SQQxns to embody these qualities to a greater 
degree than any other book with which I am acquainted, 
that I have undertaken its translation. 

Those who are acquainted with M. Compayre's excel- 
lences as a thinker and a writer will need no assurance 
that his Psychologie is characterized by philosophic 
insight, wisdom in the selection of m.atter, accuracy of 
views, and absolute clearness in exposition. 

M. Compayre's experience as an instructor in nor- 
mal schools has enabled him to determine the kind 
and amount of matter, mode of exposition, and sequence 
of topics, which are best adapted to the intellectual and 
professional needs of the teaching class. 

One charm of the book lies in the fact that Psychol- 
ogy, under this mode of treatment, has all the concrete 
interest of physical science. The subject is no longer 
enveloped in transcendental obscurity, but is brought 
within the compass of the ordinary intelligence by being 
presented as an experimental science, or science of 
observation. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE V 

M. Compayrc's philosophy will be congenial to Eng- 
lish readers, for it is the philosophy of common-sense. 
'' Spontaneity, impersonality, and universality," says M. 
Jaques, "are the characteristics of truths of covnnon- 
seiise ; and hence their truth and certainty. The 
moral law, human liberty, the existence of God, and 
immortality of the soul, are truths of conwioii-senser 

My immediate purpose in making this translation has 
been to provide a suitable book for the large classes of 
professional students in the Peabody Normal College ; 
but my thought beyond this has been to provide 
the thousands of readers of Compayre's History and 
Lectures with a companion volume and sequel. 

W. H. PAYNE. 

University of Nashville, 

Peabody Normal College, 
May 14, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction i 

I. Object of Psychology. Definition and Classifi- 
cation OF Psychological Facts .... 23 
II. Physical Activity: Movements, Instincts, Habits, 41- 

III. Physical Sensibility: Pleasure and Pain, Sensa- 

tions AND Feelings, Wants and Appetites . 56 

IV. The Intelligence in General. Division of Intel- 

lectual Facts j^ 

V. Consciousness and Attention 88 

VI. Outward Perception. The Five Senses . . . 102 
VII. Analysis and Explanation of the Phenomena of 

Memory 119 

VIII. The Law of the Association of Ideas . . . 134 

IX. The Imagination and its Different Forms . . 149 
X. Abstraction and Generalization. Abstract Ideas 

AND General Ideas 163 

XL Judgment and Reasoning 180 

XII. The Reason : Notions and First Truths . . 193 

XIII. Language and its Relations with Thought . . 210 

XIV. Moral Sensibility. Personal Inclinations . . 224 
XV. The Social Inclinations and the Ideal Inclina- 
tions 240 

XVI. The Will and Habit 259- 

XVII. Liberty and Determinism 273 

XVIII. Conclusion of the Psychology. Mind and Body, 288 

Index 305 



INTRODUCTION 



REASONS FOR TEACHING PSYCHOLOGY, AND THE 
METHOD BY WHICH IT SHOULD BE TAUGHT 

1. Object of this Introduction. — Before entering upon 
the subject proper two preliminary questions ought to 
be settled : — 

1. Why has the study of Psychology, hitherto re- 
served by way of privilege to collegiate instruction of 
the classical type, been recently introduced into our 
primary instruction, and into the programme of our 
normal schools, just as, still more recently, it has been 
included to a certain extent in the course of study for 
special schools ? 

2. How shall Psychology be taught, and what are 
the best methods to be employed for acclimating this 
philosophical science on this new territory, in order 
that it may produce all its results in minds apparently 
ill prepared for this class of studies ? 

2. General Utility of Psychology. — Though the prog- 
ress of thought has transformed human knowledge 
and has created new sciences of marvellous scope, we 
are still justified in repeating, after the lapse of two 



2 INTRODUCTION 

thousand years, what Socrates attempted to teach each 
of his disciples : the first and the most useful of the 
sciences is that which is summed up in this simple 
maxim, ''Know thyself." 

In fact, the knowledge of one's self is the key to all 
the moral sciences. To know one's self is at the same 
time to know all men ; it is to grasp the principles upon 
which rest all the knowledges relative to the moral 
nature of humanity. 

History would be but an incoherent succession of 
facts, an enigmatic procession of characters whose 
parts are not understood, for one who has not learned, 
in the school of psychology, to disentangle the inner 
motives, ideas, sentiments, or passions which move hu- 
manity, — for one who cannot analyze the characters of 
the men who, by their preponderant action, are the 
principal makers of history. 

So also, without a knowledge of men, one would 
never be more than a mediocre statesman ; for, to gov- 
ern men, the first condition is to know what are the 
essential instincts, the natural aspirations of humanity. 
How can we assume to direct forces whose nature is 
unknown to us ? 

3. Psychology and Morals. — But the utility of psychol- 
ogy is made manifest still more strikingly in its rela- 
tions to ethics and pedagogy. 

TJicorctically^ ethics is based on psychology. Liberty, 
which conditions the existence of morals, and con- 



INTRODUCTION 3 

science, which is its governing law, — liberty and con- 
science are psychological facts. The principles of 
ethics are really intelligible only to those who have 
traced their origin to psychology and have tested their 
validity in their own consciousness. On the other 
hand, the theory of duty is nothing but an induction, 
an inference from psychological facts. It is what we 
are that teaches us to determine what we ought to be. 
It is the knowledge of his own nature that reveals to 
man his destiny. For the most part, duties are but( 
natural tendencies moderated and governed by thcj 
reason. 

Practically^ ethics has no less need of psychology. 
How many faults we might have shunned, how many 
virtues we might have acquired, had we been able to 
reflect as psychologists on the efficacy of an effort of a 
courageous will, on the omnipotence of habit, on the 
inevitable fatality of a passion which is not controlled 
by reflection and repressed by the will ! 

4. Psychology and Pedagogy. — What shall we say of 
the influence exercised by a well-constructed system 
of psychology on pedagogy, or the science and art of 
education t ^ 

With respect to moral education, it is evident that 
we shall make a clumsy use of the means of discipline, 
that we shall be unskilful in correcting the faults and 

1 On the relations between pedagogy and psychology consult Compayre's 
Lectures on Pedagogy^ Chapter I. 



4 INTRODUCTION 

in developing the virtues of our pupils, if psychology 
does not enable us to analyze the feelings and the 
passions of the child, their origin and their progress. 
How shall we handle punishments and rewards with 
tact, if we do not take account of the emotions which 
they excite in the heart of the pupil, if we do not know 
what fear and shame, what self-love and emulation are ? 
How shall we be successful in promoting the develop- 
ment and progress of moral qualities, if we have not 
reflected on the relations between feelings and ideas, 
and on the formation of habits ? 

If it is a question of intellectual education, the neces- 
sity of psychological knowledge is made still more 
manifest. What more efficient preparation could we 
devise for a future educator of the mind than a study 
of the mind itself, of the different faculties of which it 
is composed and of the laws which govern its organiza- 
tion and determine the relation of its parts ? And 
when it becomes necessary to select the best methods 
of teaching, to adapt them to the powers of the child, 
and to bring them into conformity with the progress of 
his intelligence, is it enough simply to have a good 
knowledge of what we teach, say of history or geom- 
etry ? Is it not indispensable, in order that the matter 
taught may be thoroughly appropriated, to know the 
working of the intellectual faculties, just as the farmer 
is not satisfied when he has selected his seed, but must 
also know the nature of the soil on which he sows it ? 



INTRODUCTION 5 

5. Psychology and Primary Instruction. — These con- 
siderations are amply sufficient to justify the introduc- 
tion of psychology into the course of study for normal 
schools. No doubt this is knowledge which the pupil- 
teacher will have no occasion to communicate directly 
to his future pupils. It is not proposed to introduce 
the study of the human mind into the primary schools, 
notwithstanding the opinion of certain Spanish teachers 
who believe they can initiate their pupils into the ele- 
ments of psychology, without difficulty and even with 
success, at the earliest period of their school life ; ^ and 
also notwithstanding the declaration of our French edu- 
cator, Condillac, who considered the study of psychology 
as the instrument best adapted to illumine the mind of 
the child at the beginning of his studies. No ; psychol- 
ogy presupposes a maturity of mind and a power of 
attention of which the child is incapable. 

But these conditions no longer affect the pupil-teacher, 
who is already an adolescent, accustomed to intellectual 
toil ; he is surely in a condition to acquire psychologi- 
cal knowledge without special difficulty, and, once 
acquired, this knowledge will be to him of inestimable 
value : 

I. For his Professional Education. — As a teacher, he 
will be required to give instruction in morals. How 
can he do this satisfactorily if psychological reflection 

1 We allude to the programme now followed by the professors of the Free 
Academy of Madrid. 



6 INTRODUCTION 

has not prepared him to comprehend the delicate and 
profound ideas which underh'e a course in ethics, and 
to assimilate, by a personal effort, the abstract maxims 
with which he attempts to indoctrinate the mind and 
heart of his pupils ? 

On the other hand, for the other parts of his work, 
as in civics and especially in history, psychology will 
afford him general insight and illumination which will 
vivify and elevate his instruction. 

We hear it said over and over again that the mission 
of teachers is to make men. How can they do this 
if they are ignorant of what human nature is ? 

2. For /its General Editcation. — The normal school is 
not simply a manufactory of teachers ; it owes to its 
pupils, in addition to the professional education which 
fits them for their future vocation, the general educa- 
tion which develops and exalts their faculties. From 
this point of view, psychological studies are also of the 
highest importance. They alone reveal to us the dignity 
of human nature ; they alone assign to man his proper 
rank, neither too high nor too low, by giving him a 
clear comprehension of what he is. 

6. Method of Teaching Psychology. — But, that the 
pupil may actually derive these advantages from the 
study of psychology, the thing which is important above 
everything else is the manner in which this science is 
to be taught. 

Let us note in the first place that we too often forget 



INTRODUCTION 7 

the difference which exists between the scientific study 
of psychology, and elementary study in psychology. 
Psychology properly so called, psychology considered as 
a science, the object of profound philosophic research, 
is one thing ; while the psychology for school use, the 
psychology that is taught, is quite another. This dis- 
tinction has long been observed in the case of sciences 
that are even more readily acquired, as history, for 
example. We are in no danger of confounding an histo- 
rian, and a professor of history; a book of scholarly 
erudition like Henri Martin's Histoire de France^ 
and books for school use like the manuals which are 
in the hands of pupils. The authors of treatises on 
psychology are not always inspired by the same wis- 
dom. Their works are monuments erected in behalf 
of science, rather than books for popular use and 
general education. 

The teacher of psychology will then recollect, at the 
very start, that in the science which he teaches there 
is a choice to be made between discussions that are 
merely scholarly or knotty, useless facts, trifling details, 
and really useful questions which are of practical inter- 
est and which, at the same time, by their simplicity 
and clearness, are within easy comprehension of younger 
minds. Even these questions he will not profess to 
fathom or to exhaust ; he will not discuss them as a 
scholar who ventures to the very limits of his researches, 
but he will make them as light as possible to his pupils. 



8 INTRODUCTION 

and will grasp only their substance, their essential parts. 
In a word, he will recollect that he is not a thinker who 
is toiling and speculating for the advancement of pure 
science, but a teacher who selects, who appropriates, 
who simplifies scientific notions for the instruction of 
his pupils. 

7. Different Aims of a Course in Psychology. — The 
teaching of psychology takes different forms according 
to circumstances. It may follow different directions 
according to the end which is kept in view. If we are 
to teach psychology to future statesmen, lawyers, and 
embryo magistrates, it is evident that they must be 
made to study chiefly the psychology of the mature 
man, because in the practice of their profession they 
will have to do only with grown men. But as it is the 
purpose of the normal school to train future teachers 
who will have the direction of children, their attention 
must be called, not only to the adult faculties in their 
regular and systematic play, in the perfect and unchange- 
able forms of maturity, but particularly to the psychol- 
ogy of the child, to the laws which regulate the growth, 
development, and progressive organization of his facul- 
ties. 

Doubtless psychology is one, and in the normal school, 
as well as in the college or the university, it always 
admits the same questions, studied almost in the same 
order. However, by reason of the nature of his instruc- 
tion, the normal-school professor must needs give prof- 



INTRODUCTION 9 

erence to certain subjects, as the laws of habit, for ex- 
ample ; but will pass rapidly over others, such as the 
origin of ideas. He will adapt the development of his 
theme to the practical utility of the subjects treated. 
Finally, to all the questions which he discusses, he will 
give that particular treatment indicated by the special 
destination of the pupils to whom he addresses him- 
self. 

8. Natural Psychology. — But, it will be said, however 
delicate the discernment of the teacher in the choice of 
subjects, and in the treatment of his themes, psycho- 
logical notions are nevertheless obscure notions, difficult 
to comprehend, and unintelligible to certain minds. 
'' Psychology," contemporary authorities ^ are fond of 
saying, "is an abstract and austere science;" and com- 
mon opinion is in accord with this assertion. 

Are not psychologists themselves somewhat at fault 
if their science is encumbered with these prejudices 
and with this unenviable reputation ? Have they al- 
ways made sufficient effort to find, in the very experi- 
ence of the child, the starting-point for their theories } 

A prudent teacher will be able to make his pupils 
comprehend, at the very beginning of his instruction, 
that the principles of psychological knowledge are 
already within their reach. '' Of all the facts of which 
he speaks to his pupils, there is not one in reality which 
is not already known to them, which does not come 
each moment within their experience, and the expres- 

1 M. Janet, Conrs dc Morale^ Introduction. 



lO INTRODUCTION 

sion of which they have not found an hundred times in 
the authors which they have read. The teaching of 
philosophy, then, does not begin by throwing the pupil 
into an unknown world ; on the contrary, it places him 
on his most familiar soil ; it takes for basis a science 
which he has already acquired, that natural psychology, 
common to all, which it merely aims to transform into 
a truly scientific psychology through exact analyses 
which end in precision, in classification, and in defini- 
tion." ^ 

Let there be a constant appeal, then, to the personal 
observation of the pupil, who has only to retire into 
himself to find there, in very fact, the phenomena whose 
laws his teacher is expounding. Psychological truths 
do not descend from the clouds of abstract thought ; 
they proceed, so to speak, from the very heart of man ; 
each one carries them within himself. There is needed, 
doubtless, in order to disengage them, an effort of the 
reflective consciousness ; but the instinctive conscious- 
ness which accompanies all the acts of the moral life is 
the natural starting-point for this scientific observation. 
" No knowledge of mental science," say American 
teachers, " is of any value to the teacher, which does 
not arise from the conscious examination and classifica- 
tion of the phenomena and faculties of his own mind. 
. . . The study of a text-book on psychology may be 
as purely an objective process as the examination of a 

1 M. Rabier, Discourse pronounced at the distribution of yixiz&s. Journal qffi- 
ciel, August 4j 1886. 



INTRODUCTION 1 1 

mineral." ^ In order, then, to make the text -book use- 
ful, and the instruction of the teacher fruitful, the pupil 
must supplement them by subjective observation, and 
must test them by a personal verification of the facts 
stated and the laws formulated. 

If this is the best means of making clear a course of 
instruction in psychology, it is also the true way to 
make it useful ; for it is much more important to inspire 
pupils with a taste for reflection, and to give them the 
habit of studying themselves, than to communicate to 
them the results of a ready-made science ; just as in 
morals the purpose is much rather to awaken the moral 
sense and a vivid and profound consciousness of obliga- 
tion, than to teach a catalogue of duties or a series of 
subtile distinctions as to good and evil. 

9. Intuition in Psychology. — It follows from what 
precedes, that the intuitive method will find an easy 
application in the teaching of psychology. In fact, in- 
tuition assumes that children are put in the presence of 
things, and that they are first shown the facts, with 
which they are the most familiar. Now what is more 
really present to the mind than the mind itself ? What 
is nearer us and more familiar to our thoughts than the 
daily events of our moral life ? It is wrong to represent 
psychological facts as abstractions. They do not fall 
under the senses, it is true ; but they are immediately 
apprehended by the consciousness and gathered up by 

1 See the report of the St. Cloud Normal School, for the year 18S6-87. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

the memory. In their way, they are real, concrete 
things, which the pupil may constantly place under his 
gaze. Memory, attention, reason, will, are facts just as 
truly as weight, light, and electricity are. Conceived 
in this spirit, with a constant appeal to the conscious- 
ness of the pupil, the lesson in psychology may become 
a real object lesson. 

10. The Socratic Method. — The teacher of psychology 
will not then depend on the didactic method alone. He 
will not be satisfied with giving, ex profcsso, precise 
definitions and exact descriptions. He will interrogate 
his pupils as much as possible ; he will ever call into 
play their own powers of observation ; he will demand 
of them illustrations which they will find in themselves ; 
by directing their attention he will lead them to discover 
what he wishes to teach them. It is precisely to ques- 
tions of the psychological order that Socrates applied 
the method that bears his name. When history is 
taught, the teacher, so to speak, is the only one who 
talks; he has nothing, or almost nothing, to expect 
from the co-operation of his pupils ; he discovers to them 
facts of which they previously had no idea. When he 
teaches psychology, on the contrary, he may, if he 
knows how to go about it, have his pupils for active co- 
adjutors ; he may make them discover for themselves, 
for example, the conditions of attention, the principal 
laws of memory, the advantages and disadvantages of 
the imao-ination. The consciousness and the memory 



INTRODUCTION 



13 



are for each one of us an inner museum where the dif- 
ferent facts which constitute the object of psychologi- 
cal research have been successively accumulated since 
our infancy, since our entrance into conscious life. 
The task of the teachers of psychology is merely to 
classify these facts, to define them, and finally to intro- 
duce a scientific order into this confused and disordered 
collection of inner recollections. 

11. Inward Observation and the Observation of other 
Men. — Just as inward observation is the basis of scien- 
tific researches into human nature, so it ought to re- 
main the principal instrument for the teaching of psy- 
chology. Of all the sciences, psychology is the one 
which is best adapted to be taught by the same method 
by which it was discovered, — by a perpetual return of 
man upon himself. But it is also proper not to neglect 
the other sources whence may be drawn a more com- 
plete knowledge of human nature. The teacher of psy- 
chology, while inviting the pupil to observe himself, 
will also lead him to observe his comrades and men in 
general. If it is not really possible to penetrate directly 
into the consciousness of his fellows, he may at least 
divine their thoughts and emotions through gestures 
and signs, — the language, in a word, which expresses 
them. 

12. Psychology and the other Sciences. — Psychologists 
generally make great efforts to prove that theirs is a 
distinct science, that it has its own proper object irre- 



14 INTRODUCTION 

ducible to any other. We do not deny this ; but in the 
teaching of psychology it would be very dangerous, un- 
der pretext of specializing this study, to isolate it from 
all others and to neglect to profit by the aid that is 
offered it by other sciences which, after having con- 
tributed towards establishing it, may contribute still 
more towards simplifying and vivifying the teaching 
of it. Of this number are language, history, and 
literature. 

13. Psychology and Grammar. — It is so far from being 
true that psychology is a science so entirely distinct 
from others^, and of a nature to disconcert pupils by its 
absolute novelty, that, on the contrary, it has intimate 
relations with the first science which the child under- 
takes, namely, grammar. A good knowledge of gram- 
mar is an excellent preparation for an important part of 
the course in psychology. Psychology, as we know, 
studies the laws of thought, and grammar, the laws of 
language. Now language is but the expression of 
thought. How then can we take account of the value 
of words, of their relations, of the rules of syntax which 
determine their correct use, without at the same time 
acquiring some idea of the inner processes of thought ? 
We are studying psychology without knowing it when 
we make a logical analysis of the sentence, — when we 
distinguish the subject, the verb and predicate, which 
are precisely the elements of the judgment. When we 
state the grammatical theory of the substantive and the 



INTRODUCTION 



15 



adjective, we apply, without suspecting it, one of the 
rational principles determined by psychology, namely, 
the principle of substance, which is sometimes enun- 
ciated as follows : " There is no quality or mode without 
substance." 

14. Psychology and History. — Complaint is made, and 
not without reason, of the barrenness of a mere psycho- 
logical statement which is limited to generalities on 
human nature. An excellent remedy for this tedious 
dryness felt by young minds, is to find in historical 
events and in the biography of illustrious men, exam- 
ples corresponding to the different faculties which are 
studied. It is not merely to supply the defects of indi- 
vidual observation, which never presents to us more 
than an imperfect specimen of man, that we must put 
history under contribution ; but chiefly that we may 
cause instruction to be penetrated with interest and 
life. Make your pupils perceive that in history, Newton 
represents attention ; Caesar, ambition ; Shakespeare, 
imagination ; Descartes, reason, and they will listen to 
you with redoubled curiosity. Make them comprehend 
what motives Charles IX. obeyed when he ordered the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew ; Charlotte Corday, when 
she killed Marat ; and you will have done much to 
initiate and interest your auditors in the study of the 
sensibilities. History, so to speak, is nothing but psy- 
chology in action. Historical events are to psychology 
nearly what experiments are to physics. They show 



l6 INTRODUCTION 

US the human faculties acting under particular circum- 
stances, with the relief and scope given them in the 
case of certain men by exceptional force of mind and 
character. 

15. Psychology and Literature. — We also recommend 
that the teacher unite psychology and literature as 
closely as possible. The writings of moralists, the 
memoirs of literary men, and the works of dramatic 
poets are psychological documents of incomparable 
value. They unveil the human soul, some in the dis- 
order of its passions, others in the heroism of its will. 
" For the study of the laws of the understanding, we 
must know men of letters ; while in the tragic poets 
we must make an intimate study of heart, passion, and 
will." 1 The reading of a page of Descartes to explain 
the process of reasoning ; of a play of Racine or of 
Corneille, to analyze the play of the passions ; these will 
come as a happy relief to didactic instruction in psy- 
chology. 

16. Comparative Psychology. — Psychology furnishes 
man with his true titles of nobility by revealing to him 
the dignity of his nature ; but it should also teach him 
in what respect he resembles other animals. For the 
study of the lower faculties of human nature, — instinct, 
.physical activity, sense-perception, memory, — animal 
life offers points of comparison to which the teacher of 

1 M. Janet, La PsycJiologic dc Racine^ Revue des Deux-Mondes, SeiDtember 
15, 1S75. 



INTRODUCTION I7 

psychology will not fail to have recourse. Children and 
youth have a particular taste for the observation of 
lower animals. We should know how to take advantage 
of this disposition, inasmuch as comparative psychol- 
ogy — the study of the animal — will contribute towards 
promoting the study of man. *' If there were no ani- 
mals," said Buffon, "the nature of man would be much 
more incomprehensible." If the Fables of La Fontaine 
are often lessons in morals, a given page of natural his- 
tory may be also a lesson in psychology. 

17. Psychology of the Child. — The study of a child, 
even more than the observation of animals, will furnish 
the psychologist with useful and interesting information. 
Anecdotes borrowed from the acts and pranks of chil- 
dren will come in play to embellish the somewhat monot- 
onous ground-work of psychological theory. Moreover, 
the psychology of the child forms an integral part of a 
course in psychology, if it is true, as we have said else- 
where, that psychology is not a geometry of invariable 
theorems, but a history which relates the progressive 
evolution of the soul. However, a start has been made 
in this direction ; books on childhood are multiplying ; ^ 
and now what we have to fear in this direction is abuse 
and excess, rather than negligence or oversight. We 
have read, not without some solicitude, the dissertation 
of a teacher on the development of the intelligence, in 

1 The reader will consult with profit the books so suggestive and so rich in 
facts, which Perez has devoted to the study of childhood. 



1 8 INTRODUCTION 

which he speaks for several pages of the first sensations 
of the child before its birth ! 

18. Practical Advice. — We have attempted to define 
the general method of teaching psychology ; but, after 
all, it must be remembered that the best method will 
never supply the place of talent and learning on the 
part of the teacher. The lessons most in accord with 
the plans which we have sketched will still amount to 
nothing if the teacher does not know how to animate 
them by exactness and vivacity of exposition, and by 
the accent of personal conviction. However, each 
lesson in psychology must provide for definitions and 
descriptions, or rather analyses, which are but more 
exact descriptions. Psychology does not deserve the 
reproach of not being able to escape vagueness and 
uncertainty ; this is true only of rational psychology, 
which raises the metaphysical questions of substance 
and of the spirituality of the soul. But elementary psy- 
chology, which contents itself with stating facts and de- 
fining their relations, — empirical psychology, which 
does not pass the limits of observation, — is a science 
as solid and as exact as physics or chemistry, with only 
^ this difference, that it cannot apply numerical formulae 
to the phenomena which it studies. We must endeavor, 
therefore, to adopt a rigor of treatment which it is not 
impossible to attain, while shunning, as much as possi- 
ble, technical terms, and taking care, every time that 
we employ them, to show that they have equivalents in 



INTRODUCTION 



19 



common language, — that sensibility and understanding, 
for example, are called in every-day language, heart and 
intellect. The examples borrowed from history, and 
the literary comparisons, will come into play only to 
complete and illustrate the didactic part of the exposi- 
tion, like illustrations in the text. 

19. Written Reviews. — But besides paying due re- 
gard to precision and exactness of exposition, the teacher 
must assure himself by frequent interrogations that the 
pupil has comprehended and retained what has been 
taught him, and must be made to add to this, from his 
own resources, something coming from personal reflec- 
tion.. In order to fix the oral instruction, it will also 
be well to employ the process of written review ; on 
condition that no abuse is made of it, and that the long 
task of reproducing each lesson is not imposed on every 
pupil. It is sufBcient that pupils take turns in re- 
stating the teacher's exposition. This unique recitation, 
in which the pupil will be able, on certain points at 
least, to do original work, and which will not be merely 
a servile and mechanical reproduction of what has been 
said in class, — this written review, once revised and 
corrected by the teacher, will become for every pupil 
the exact incmento of each part of the course. 

20. Use of the Text-Book. — Under these conditions, 
it would seem that the text-book is not useless ; and it 
certainly is not. Of all the sciences, philosophy perhaps 
is the one which can be the least content with an oral 



20 INTRODUCTION 

exposition, even when excellently made ; it demands, 
in addition, the toil of meditation and of reflective 
reading. Hence the necessity of a book which is a 
commentary on the teacher's lessons, and which, having 
more precision and briefer developments than an oral 
exposition, fixes and holds under the pupil's eyes the 
fundamental notions of the science. 

21. General Characteristics of Psychology. — When thus 
taught, we do not hesitate to say that psychology may 
be made for young people a study relatively easy and 
interesting. It is with this hope that we have written 
the modest treatise which we now offer to our readers. 
May they acquire by studying it the taste for psycho- 
logical studies, and the sense of the moral life, which 
the rising generation is in danger of losing through the 
development of the physical sciences ! We hope at 
least that they will learn to esteem psychology and 
to comprehend its scope. The moral world, like the 
physical world, is subject to law ; so that while study- 
ing himself a man studies all men, just as by studying 
one mineral or one plant, he studies all minerals and 
all plants. Whatever may be said of it, psychology is a 
positive science which, on valid grounds, aspires to cer- 
titude. It reveals to us one part of the universal order, 
— the order which presides over the development of 
our moral nature. We are not prepared to believe that 
it loses its value and its interest because it has waived, 
after the example of the physical sciences, the insoluble 



INTRODUCTION 21 

problems with which the human reason will always 
come into collision, and which fall within the domain of 
metaphysics, — because it has reduced its pretensions 
to the classification and analysis of facts which serve 
as the bases for moral rules and educational methods. 



THE ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



Note. — This mark (*) refers the reader to the Special Index of Proper Names and 
Technical Terms, at the end of this volume. 



CHAPTER I 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY. DEFINITION AND CLAS- 
SIFICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTS 

22. Definition of Terms. — Psychology — {from two 
Greek words signifying science of the soul) — is a philo- 
sophical science which studies the inner facts of the 
moral life of man ; just as physiology is a biological 
science whose object is the functions of the organic life. 

Psychology is thus a science of facts which, like all 
facts, may be called pJienoinena, that is, things which 
appear ; which facts are also functions or operations, 
if we regard them as the prolonged manifestations of 
one and the same force ; and which, finally, having the 
common characteristic of being conscious, may be 
called states of conscionsness. 

Consciousness is the immediate knowledge which we 
have of whatever takes place in any given part of our 
being. The facts revealed by consciousness are con- 
nected with what is called the moral nature of man, 



24 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

or, in other terms, with the spirit or soul ; the facts 
which escape consciousness, and which can be known 
only through the medium of the senses, constitute, on 
the other hand, the pJiysical nature of man, or, in other 
terms, the organism, the body. Psychology thus stud- 
ies the facts of which we are conscious, and establishes 
the laws which regulate them. Law is the constant 
relation which exists between two phenomena, one of 
which is the antecedent, or cause, and the other the 
consequent, or effect. 

23. Empirical Psychology and Rational Psychology. — 
Psychology proper, or Evipirical Psychology^ which re- 
stricts itself to observation and experience, does not 
speculate upon the nature of the principle underlying 
the facts which it studies. Whether this principle be 
the material organism, and in particular the brain, or, 
on the contrary, an immaterial cause, an independent 
substance, is in one sense of little importance to this 
science ; it studies real facts, and this suffices for it. 

If psychology wishes to go farther and pronounce 
upon the existence or the nature of the soul, it becomes 
Rational Psychology, which is but a part of metaphysics, 
that is, of that collection of researches whose object is 
whatever passes beyond nature, moral nature as well 
as physical nature.^ But just as the physicist and the 
physiologist refer the facts which they observe to a 

1 Of the eighteen chapters composing this book, the last is the only one per- 
taining to rational psychology. 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 25 

single principle, matter, however embarrassed they may 
be to tell in just what matter consists ; so, psycholo- 
gists, in order to designate the supposed cause of the 
states of consciousness, employ the word spirit or the 
word soul, although they do not always trust themselves 
to define its nature. Were it only for clearness of ex- 
position, it would still be necessary to hold to the word 
''soul" as the synonyme for the body of moral facts or 
conscious facts, even were it to be proved that all the 
conditiDns, all the causes, of psychological facts reside 
in the material organism of man. 

24. History of the Idea of the Soul. — The soul has 
been conceived under a multitude of forms. Among 
primitive peoples, it seems that the belief in the soul 
was created by the phenomena of dreaming and the 
manifestations of life. On the one hand, struck by see- 
ing again in their dreams, as if they still lived and were 
really present, persons whom space or death had sepa- 
rated from them, savages were naturally led to believe 
in phantoms and spirits. On the other hand, the con- 
cealed power which animates the living man and which 
vanishes when he dies, was early taken as a distinct 
principle, independent of the body. The vital soul, the 
phantom soul, — such are the two forms conceived by 
the gross spiritualism of infant peoples. For them the 
soul is not the prerogative of man ; there is a soul in 
the animal and even in the plant. Just as humanity 
began with polytJieisvi * in its conception of God, so it 



26 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

began ^Nith. polyaiiiinisi/i* in its conception of the soul. 
The primitive races readily regarded animals as fellow- 
creatures of men, attributing to them immortal souls 
and believing in a paradise of animals. The Esqui- 
maux, it is said, bury in the tomb of little children the 
head of a dog, so that the soul of the dog may serve as 
a guide, towards the sojourn of the happy, to the soul 
of the child still incapable of self-conduct. 

For a long time there was a belief in the soul of 
plants. In the time of St. Augustine* the Mani- 
chaeans * maintained this belief. Not only so, but in- 
animate things, such as minerals, tools, and arms, were 
at first thought to have souls. Among the Fijians, in 
Oceanica, paradise receives the souls of hatchets and 
shears when these instruments have been broken in the 
service of men. 

In a word, at the beginning of human thought, the 
soul was considered as a universal principle inherent in 
all things ; in inanimate things the soul was the 
principle of permanence and form ; in animals and 
plants it was the principle of life, of sensibility, and 
of motion. 

25. Material Souls. — But the sensible imagination of 
men for a long time regarded these multiple souls as 
material. According to the early Greek philosophers, 
the human soul is of the same nature as the material 
elements of the universe ; at one time it is confounded 
with the air, and at another with fire. The early theo- 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 2^ 

rists of the soul were particularly struck with the idea 
that it is a principle of motion ; so it was conceived as 
something winged or mobile. The butterfly is taken 
as the symbol of the soul, and the Greek word Psyche 
has these two meanings. Democritus * conceives the 
soul as a spheroidal atom, because round bodies move 
more easily and glide over things more readily. We 
also meet with this same materialistic conception of the 
soul in the early fathers of the Christian church. Ter- 
tullian,* Arnobius,* St. Irenaeus,* and St. Justin ^ still 
believe that the soul is a body. Among the Chinese, 
when a man is dead a hole is made in the roof in order 
that the soul may escape ; and among certain savage 
tribes a hole is made in the grave with the same intent. 
Even to-day, in certain parts of Europe, the custom is 
still kept up of leaving a door or a window open in the 
chamber of the dead. 

26. The Immaterial Soul. — The idea of an immaterial 
soul, absolutely distinct from the body, is an idea rela- 
tively new in the history of the human mind. Plato,* 
a Greek philosopher, St. Augustine,* a father of the 
Church, and Descartes,* a French philosopher, are the 
real founders of the doctrine of spirituality. For 
Plato,* the soul is in the body like a prisoner in his 
cell or like a pilot in his boat. *' Everything which is 
not matter," says St. Augustine, ''and which still 
exists, is called spirit." Finally, Descartes, with still 
more precision, opposed unextended and invisible 



28 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

thought to material extension, and hence inferred the 
existence of a spiritual soul. 

But Descartes, while attempting to make more clear 
the difference between the soul and the body, restricted 
and narrowed the notion of the soul, since he reduced 
its content to thought alone, and assigned to its activity 
no other domain than the intellectual world of ideas. 

The spiritualist philosophers who have succeeded 
Descartes have enlarged anew the somewhat narrow, 
point of view occupied by the author of the Discourse 
on Method. They have restored to the soul the phe- 
nomena of sensibility, which Descartes was too much 
disposed to relegate to the lower regions of the organic 
life ; consequently they speak again of the soul of ani- 
mals, which, for Descartes, were no more than machines 
or automata.* Some of them have even gone so far as 
to attribute to the soul the phenomena of animal life 
and the physiological functions of the human body.^ 

27. The Soul and Psychological Facts. — These histori- 
cal explanations were necessary in order to understand 
the direction of our studies and to define with exactness 
the domain of psychology. 

It is not necessary at present to take sides for or 
against spiritualism. Our only concern is with facts 
immediately present to our consciousness. 

The soul is not a fact of experience. It is a hidden 

1 This is the doctrine called ant7nism, in opposition to vitalism, which admits a 
vital prindple to explain the functions of life. It is now the general tendency to 
consider the organic functions as the result of purely material phenomena. 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 29 

cause of which we know directly only the effects ; an 
unknown substance of which we apprehend only the 
particular and successive modifications. But these 
effects, these modifications, to whatever principle we 
are hereafter to refer them, constitute a distinct and 
irreducible category of phenomena which ought to be 
the essential object of psychological research. The 
great number of contradictory conceptions of the soul, 
considered by some as the principle of thought alone, 
by others as a principle that feels, thinks, and wills, and 
by still others as the sole cause of life and thought, 
suffice to prove how very necessary it is to postpone, if 
not entirely to waive, the obscure and controverted 
question of the nature of the soul. 

28. Consciousness the Limit of Psychology. — Psycho- 
logical facts will therefore be defined as conscious facts, 
or at least as facts susceptible of becoming conscious. 
Consciousness is the natural limit of psychology. 
Whatever is known through consciousness — all the 
phenomena which succeed each other in our spiritual 
tribunal, instinctive or voluntary actions, sensations, or 
feelings, ideas or judgments, which sleep alone sus- 
pends or at least retards, and which, in order to be 
known, do not require the mediation of the senses, — 
all these are included within the domain of psychology ; 
everything, on the contrary, which escapes conscious- 
ness, remains outside of psychology. 

It is true that psychologists claim, and not without 



30 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

reason, the study of certain unconscious phenomena, 
for example, those thousands of latent recollections 
which lie dormant in our mind, but which may be sud- 
denly awakened by one circumstance or another ; but 
these facts, actually unconscious, may from moment to 
moment reappear in the light of consciousness ; they 
are, so to speak, only provisionally unconscious ; while 
the phenomena of animal life, such as circulation, res- 
piration, and digestion, are unconscious naturally and 
always ; they would be unknown, they would remain 
buried in the mysterious night and the obscure depths 
of the organism, if the senses did not penetrate there 
to discover them. 

29. Distinction between Psychological Facts and Phys- 
iological Facts. — The physical and the spiritual are so 
intimately united in human nature, they exercise such 
a profound influence upon one another, that the attempt 
has sometimes been made to absorb psychology, which 
studies the moral life of man, in physiology, which 
studies his physical life. Digestion, circulation, and 
respiration, it is said, are functions of the stomach, 
heart, and lungs, just as thought is the function of the 
brain. The two sciences, that which studies thought, 
and that which studies the brain, ought then to be fused 
into one ; and psychology is nothing more than a chap- 
ter in physiology. Nothing of this kind can be done, 
for between psychological phenomena and physiological 
phenomena there is a radical opposition of a nature 
which makes all assimilation impossible. 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 3 I 

In the first place, these two categories of phenomena 
are not known in the same way. Retire into your- 
selves, and in your memory review all you have clone 
since you awoke. On the one hand, you have accom- 
plished certain acts : you have made your morning 
toilet ; you have gone to school and then to your 
classes ; you have opened your books ; you have heard 
your teacher's lecture ; you have replied to his ques- 
tions ; you have acquired new ideas by your senses or 
by your reflection, or by the use of your memory you 
have' reviewed old ideas ; finally, you have experienced 
from your studies emotions of pleasure or of pain, and 
from your toil sensations of fatigue. Of all this you 
have been immediately informed by your conscious- 
ness ; you have known what you thought, what you 
felt, and what you willed to do. But, on the other 
hand, while you were engaged in study you lived ; 
your organic functions were accomplished ; your heart 
beat, your blood circulated, and you knew nothing of 
it ; your muscles contracted or relaxed, your nerves 
vibrated, and you were not informed of it. 

Consequently, how can you confound these two series 
of phenomena, those which are immediately revealed to 
you the moment they come into existence, and those of 
which you are ignorant, although they are taking place 
within you without interruption, — for example, the cir- 
culation of the blood, of which you would have had 
absolutely no idea if you had lived before Harvey .? * 



32 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



In the second place, physiological phenomena are all 
movements of matter, as the contraction of the mus- 
cles, the vibration of the nerves, etc. Psychological 
phenomena are perhaps the consequences of certain 
movements of cerebral matter ; but in themselves they 
are anything but movements, and it is precisely for 
this reason that they escape all sense-perception. 

" It were to little purpose," says a contemporary 
psychologist, *' if, the brain having been indefinitely 
enlarged, we could there move about as in a mill ; or, 
having become transparent like glass, our sight could 
traverse it from part to part. We would there see no 
more psychological phenomena than we see in a mill or 
in a sphere of crystal." ^ 

Finally, and in the third place, psychological phe- 
nomena and physiological phenomena are in a sense 
independent of each other. Doubtless we do not find 
thought without life ; we have never met with a think- 
ing being who was not at the same time a living being. 
But, on the contrary, in sleep, for example, not to speak 
of madness, we observe that life is prolonged and the 
physiological phenomena maintained even when the 
psychological phenomena are almost totally interrupted. 

We do not always dream, there is dreamless sleep ; 
and in this case feeling, thought, will, — all for a time 
disappear ; consciousness is extinct, while the physical 
functions pursue their course. 

1 See M. Rabier, Lemons de Philosophie, t. i. p. 29. This is a remarkable and 
scholarly work, too scholarly, perhaps, for elementary study. 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 33 

30. Relations between Psychology and Physiology. — 
However distinct the facts studied by physiology may 
be from those which are the objects of psychology, 
we are no longer living in a time when the relations 
between these two phenomena are called in question. 
To-day, who would think of repeating what Barthelemy 
Saint-Hilaire * wrote thirty years ago in his preface 
to the Psychology of Aristotle : * "I believe that 
physiology has no place in a treatise on psychology " ? 
No, psychological facts are connected with physical 
conditions ; they depend, in part at least, on the organ- 
ism. The philosopher who would forget this connec- 
tion would be in great danger of forgetting what 
cerebral weariness might remind him of, in the very 
midst of his meditations, that the brain also plays a 
part in the labor of the intelligence. There is almost 
always an allowance tt) be made for physiological con- 
siderations in the analysis of the different operations 
revealed to us by consciousness. 

31. Classification of Psychological Facts. — Although 
the facts of psychology have consciousness for their 
unique form, they differ greatly from one another, and 
the first care of the psychologist ought to be to classify 
them and to distribute them into categories according 
to their essential resemblances and differences. 

32. The Faculties. — The classes of moral phenomena 
recognized by observation are designated as so many 
faculties. The faculties are to the soul what properties 



34 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

are to inanimate matter, or functions to organized 
bodies. They are the forces of the moral world. 

No one would now think of doing what was formerly 
done, — take the faculties for independent and distinct 
entities,* for separate existences. The faculties are but 
general and abstract denominations, nominal labels, 
under which psychologists arrange for convenience of 
exposition the families of analogous facts which they 
have distinguished in the consciousness. It is to be 
clearly understood that every time we use the word 
faculty we shall comprehend under that term a collec- 
tion of facts, 

33. History of the Question. — Let US briefly recall 
the different schemes of classification which have been 
proposed for the moral faculties. Plato distinguished 
three parts in the soul : the intelligence or reason, the 
heart or courage, the source of noble or elevated pas- 
sions, and desire or inferior sensibility. In the seven- 
teenth century, with Descartes and his disciples, we 
see the faculties reduced to the understanding, or 
intelligence, and the will ; sensibility is omitted. On 
the other hand, Bossuet * confounds the will and the 
understanding under the same class of intellectual 
operations, and establishes a class apart for the emo- 
tional activities. 

It is in Germany, and in the last century among the 
psychologists of Wolf's * school, who really invented 
the word " psychology," up to that time unused, that 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 35 

there was established for the first time, with some 
degree of precision, the distinction, now classical and 
commonplace, of the three faculties, — the sensibility, 
the intelligence, and the will. Rejected by the sen- 
sualists who, like Condillac,* would see nothing in 
psychological phenomena but the transformations of a 
unique, primordial fact, which was sensation, the triple 
division of the moral faculties has been admitted by 
most other philosophers. Reid * and the Scotch 
school, it is true, returned to the Cartesian theory, 
and distinguished only the active faculties and the 
intellectual faculties. But more and more, and not- 
withstanding the isolated attempts of certain persons, 
who, like the phrenologists,* propose a classification 
much more complicated and much longer, the philoso- 
phers of the most diverse schools, the positivists* as 
well as the spiritualists, those who doubt the existence 
of the soul as well as those who believe in it the most 
firmly, are united in dividing mental science into three 
departments. Thus Alexander Bain,"*^ one of the most 
celebrated representatives of contemporary English 
psychology, admits the three categories which he 
defines in these terms : 

1. Feeling, which includes pleasures and pains. The 
words emotion, passion, and affection are synonyms of 
feeling. 

2. Volition, or will. 

3. Thonght, intelligence, or knowledge. The sensa- 



36 ELEMENTS OF rSYCHOLOGY 

tions are arranged in part under feeling and in part 
i_mder thought. 

34. Facts Affective or Sensitive, Intellectual, or Voli- 
tional. — In order to comprehend the difference between 
the three series of facts which are distinguished by 
psychologists, the best way, perhaps, is to refer to the 
personal experience of each one, and to go in quest of 
examples. 

The heat which the sun communicates, the perfume 
which we inhale from flowers, the sweet taste of honey, 
and, also, the emotion caused by the sight of a picture, 
the sorrow felt on losing a friend, — these are sensations 
and feelings. Notwithstanding the differences which 
separate them, all these facts resemble one another in 
that they are emotions, facts affective or sensitive; 
they all have for a common characteristic that they 
consist in loving or in hating, and consequently in 
enjoying or in suffering. 

On the other hand, the perception of the form or of 
the color of an object, the recollection of a past event, 
the image we retain of a monument or of a landscape, 
the idea of a quality common to a great number of 
persons, as wickedness or virtue, the demonstrations 
of geometry, — these are intellectual facts, all of which 
have this fundamental characteristic of being represent- 
ative, of offering to the consciousness the representa- 
tion either of an object or of some relation between 
objects. 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 37 

Finally, the acts which a man accomplishes when 
he speaks, when he sets himself to work, when he 
writes, when he changes his position, when he forms 
any resolution whatever, — these are facts, all of which 
have for their initial cause the zvill^ or the power of 
self-determination to an action. 

The first are connected with the sensibility, the 
second with the intelligence, and the last with the vol- 
untary activity. 

35. Table of the Faculties. — All the essential facts 
of the moral life are included within these three cate- 
gories, scjisibility, intelligence, zvill. These three attri- 
butes exhaust the definition of mind, which may be 
regarded as a force which feels, thinks, and wills ; 
which is equivalent to saying that the human mind 
manifests itself successively through sensations or feel- 
ings, through thoughts, and through volitions. 

However, in order to be rigorously complete, and by 
reason of the strict relations between body and mind, 
we must also include among psychological facts certain 
intermediate facts, mediating, so to speak, between 
mind and body, and placed on the confines of psychol- 
ogy and physiology, — these are the movements and 
the instincts, which may be connected with physical 
activity. 

On the other hand, the phenomena of sensibility 
differ profoundly in their origin, in their objects, and 
in their order of evolution. The pleasures and the 



38 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

pains of the body, in a word, the sensations, are inti- 
mately connected with the physical organs ; while the 
joys and the sorrows of the heart and the mind are of 
a higher nature, are developed later, and presuppose, as 
antecedents, intellectual facts. The first constitute the 
physical sensibility, the other the moral scnsibilityy 
which should not be studied until after the intelligence, 
since it is in part derived from it. 

In conclusion, the table of the psychological faculties 
may be divided as follows : — 

1. Physical Activity. 

2. Physical Sensibility. 

3. Intelligence. 

4. Moral Sensibility. 

5. Voluntary Activity. 

36 Relations of the Faculties to Each Other. — It is 

to be clearly understood, however, that in fact the dif- 
ferent states of consciousness do not exist wholly 
isolated and are not absolutely independent of one 
another ; the faculties work together and aid one 
another ; the phenomena mingle and fuse together. 

Thus the intelligence is associated with all psycho- 
logical operations, since consciousness, which is the 
common characteristic of all these operations, is itself 
the chief of the intellectual functions. There is not a 
joy or a sorrow, an affection or an aversion, which is 
not conscious of itself, and which, in addition, does not 



OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 39 

implicate, in a greater or less degree, the idea of the 
object, agreeable or disagreeable, loved or hated, which 
provokes these emotions. And so there is no volition 
which does not presuppose the knowledge, vague or 
definite, of the act which we have resolved to accom- 
plish, and the motives for which the resolution has 
been taken. It is rare that the mind exists in an 
exclusive state, but the classical division into three 
essential faculties still holds good, and the necessities 
of analysis require that psychology separate ideally and 
in theory what in reality is one. 

The legitimacy of the distinction of the faculties, 
thus understood, can be doubted by no one ; but we 
must be on our guard against attaching to this work 
of classification more importance than it deserves. A 
thing of greater interest to the psychologist is to 
describe and analyze facts for the sake of referring 
them, not only to the classes which comprise them, 
but to the laws which govern them. 

SUMMARY. 

1. PSYCHOLOGY is the study of the inner facts which 
constitute the moral life of man, as distinguished from his 
physical life. 

2. EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY is a science of facts. 
RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY is a metaphysical science 
which attempts to connect these facts with some single 
principle, as the soul, according to the spiritualists. 



40 ELEMENTS OF PSYCflOLOGY 

3. The SOUL has been variously understood : as a prin- 
ciple of permanence and form in minerals ; as a principle of 
life in plants ; as a principle of sensibility and movement in 
animals ; and, finally, as a principle of thought in man. 

The word "soul" has become more and more the synonym 
of the SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE which feels, thinks, and 
wills. 

4. The study of psychological facts is independent of the 
conclusions which philosophers reach concerning the exist- 
ence and nature of the soul. 

5. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTS are distinguished from 
PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS as follows: i, They are imme- 
diately known through the consciousness ; 2, they are not, 
like physiological facts, simple movements of extended mat- 
ter; 3, they may not co-exist with physiological phenomena. 

6. Psychological facts present resemblances and differ- 
ences which allow us to classify them under a certain num- 
ber of categories called the FACULTIES OF THE SOUL. 

7. A faculty is nothing more than a complement of con- 
scious states having the same nature. 

8. We distinguish three series of psychological facts : i, 
affective or sensitive facts ; 2, intellectual facts ; 3, volitional 
facts ; and consequently, three faculties : the SENSIBILITY, 
the INTELLIGENCE, and the WILL. 

9. To these three essential faculties there must be added 
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. As to the affective facts, they 
should be connected, some with physical sensibility, and 
others with moral sensibility. 



PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 



v.^ 



CHAPTER II 

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: MOVEMENTS, INSTINCTS, 
HABITS 

^37. Evolution of the Faculties. — Man does not arrive 
at once at the full possession of his moral faculties. It 
is by slow degrees that he rises from animal life to 
human life. In the study of psychological phenomena, 
it is evidently best to follow this natural order of evo- 
lution. ^ We shall therefore begin our inquiries, not 
with an analysis of the highest faculties, but with an 
examination of the humblest facts, those which are 
common to animals and men. 

38. Activity in General. — Under this head it is phys- 
ical activity which first presents itself to our observation. 

In a sense, it is true, every psychological operation 
is an act, a phenomenon of activity. To think, to feel, 
is also to act. Activity, under all its forms, may be 
defined as the development of a force which tends to a 
given end. But we give to the word '^ activity" a more 
restricted and definite signification when we regard it 
as the principle of actions which it manifests outside 
of itself, as when we employ the expression physical 
activity to designate the totality of influences or causes 
which determine the movements of the body. 



42 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Physical activity, at first blind, fatal, determined 
by obscure causes, by dull and almost unconscious 
instincts, passes thence under the domain of the sensi- 
bilities, that is, of the conscious emotions ; and still 
later it comes under the empire of the will. But at all 
its stages and under all its forms, it may be defined as 
the power of acting on the ninscles and of producing cor- 
poreal movements. 

39. Movements in the Child. — The phenomena of 
movement are the first which manifest themselves in 
the child. Long before he thinks, he acts, he moves. 
As soon as he is born he becomes active and moves his 
lips for nourishment ; he closes his eyelids to shield 
himself from the glare of too strong a light; he con- 
tracts the muscles of his chest and throat in order to 
cry or crow. 

40. Are Movements Psychological Phenomena? — The 
movements of the body are above all physiological 
facts resulting from the play of nerve and muscle. 
But they are also, in part, psychological facts, — they 
will become so in proportion as they fall under the 
survey of consciousness. The child is not a simple 
machine, and his movements are not purely mechanical 
acts, the result of a material automatism. 

41. Classification of Movements. — The ordinary move- 
ments of the child present themselves under many 
forms and participate more or less in the conscious 
life. Some of them are almost wholly unconscious. 



THYSICAL ACTIVITY 43 

We shall especially distinguish spontaneous move- 
ments, which proceed from nature itself, from an inter- 
nal excitation, from provoked movements, which are 
determined by an exterior stimulus. 

42. Spontaneous Movements. — In the adult, and in 
certain cases even in the child, the spontaneous move- 
ments have their cause in the will ; they then depend 
upon the volitional activity, which we shall study farther 
on (Chapter XVI.). In this case, we produce a move- 
ment with the conception of cause fully before us, in 
order to accomplish a premeditated action or to attain 
a foreseen end. But before obeying our will, our 
nerves and muscles are obedient to blind necessity, to 
the unconscious tendencies of nature. 

1. In a few cases, the movements of the child are 
caused by a habit already contracted in pre-natal life. 
Habit, that tyrant of life, already exercises its authority 
over the infant. The observers of infancy have proved, 
for example, that infants have a tendency to place their 
hands upon their face and eyes and to bend their limbs 
toward their body ; these are habitual movements. 

2. Hereditary habits transmitted by parents may 
also determine special movements. Perez observed a 
child of six days that lifted its hand mechanically to 
its face and succeeded in placing it on its head. The 
child's father recognized in this movement one of his 
own ordinary gestures. 

3. But these are only exceptional cases and of but 



44 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

little importance. A far greater number of move- 
ments, in the child and even in the mature man, are 
explained by the spontaneous activity of the nerve cen- 
tres. There is in the child an energy of vital force, a 
freshness and superabundance of overflowing vigor, 
which manifests itself by disorderly gesticulation and 
incessant mobility. The more powerful the vital func- 
tions, the more active the movements will be. At 
every period of life the natural vigor of the organs and 
the high health of the functions will be expressed by 
movements of this class. 

43. Provoked Movements — The movements of a 
child and even of a man are not always the conse- 
quence of an interior and spontaneous excitation ; they 
often proceed from an exterior cause. Such, for 
example, are the brusque and sudden movements deter- 
mined in us by the sight of a repulsive object, by a 
startling noise, or by the sensation of tickling. 

44. Reflex Actions. — The irreflective, involuntary 
acts, provoked by an exterior agent, furnish us with a 
perfect type of what the physiologists call a reflex 
action, through analogy, doubtless, with the phenomena 
of the reflection of light. 

Reflex action is in some sort the response of the 
living organism to the exterior excitation which solicits 
it. The sensitive plant, when it folds its leaves at the 
slightest touch, gives us the image of reflex action. 
But reflex action really exists only in animals that have 



PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 45 

a nervous system and a muscular system, the first sus- 
ceptible of irritation and the second of contraction. 
The two systems, the two tissues, are so connected 
that the irritation of one involves the contraction of 
the other, and so they determine a movement. The 
excitation once communicated to the nerves propagates 
itself along the nerve fibres and stops at a nerve centre, 
whence it is transmitted to a muscle by means of 
another nerve. 

Of course, although the type of refiex action is a 
provoked movement, spontaneous movements are also 
reflex actions whenever they are unconscious and auto- 
matic. In this case the nervous excitation produces 
itself by virtue of the native activity of the nerve cen- 
tres. But reflex action is always and absolutely irre- 
flective ; consciousness is absent from it, and still more 
the will. "Reflex actions," says Herbert Spencer, "are 
but the aurora of the sensible life." 

45. Instinctive Movements — We have just examined 
different categories of movements, which have for an- 
tecedent or cause, either a habit, individual heredity, an 
overflow of physical activity, or an exterior excitation. 
But there is a whole series of spontaneous movements, 
of much greater importance, that are to be explained 
by instinct. 

Instinctive movements are distinguished from other 
spontaneous movements, by the fact that they are co- 
ordinated, regular, and directed towards an end. But 



46 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

they do not know this end, or they know it but faintly ; 
they tend toward it ahiiost blindly, and in this respect 
they are distinguished from voluntary movements. 

Of this number are the movements which the infant 
accomplishes in order to take nourishment, to co-ordi- 
nate its eyes for seeing, and to give its limbs the locomo- 
tive rhythm. 

46. Instinct in Man. — Certain philosophers assert 
that instinct is the prerogative of the animal. Capable 
of learning everything, man, it is said, begins by know- 
ing nothing ; he does iK)t have instinct, or has it only 
in a slight degree. In this respect human life, in which 
reflection plays a great part, is surely not to be com- 
pared with animal hfe, almost entirely enslaved to 
blind instinct. But in the early years of the child, at 
least, it is impossible not to recognize the fact that 
instinct is the source of a certain number of actions. 
Before man, who is expected to govern himself, is in 
full possession of his reason and his will, nature has 
placed him under the protection of certain dispositions 
which serve him as guides, which determine him to act, 
and to act in conformity with the essential needs of his 
existence. 

47. Characteristics of Instinct. — Instinct may be de- 
fined as an innate tendency or impulse to act, which 
precedes all education, which supposes no previous 
reflection, but which nevertheless attains the end 
pursued with marvellous certainty. 



PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 47 

Instinct is the part of man's nature which is the gift 
of heredity. Every individual owes his very existence 
and his ability to reproduce, in turn, the type of the 
species to which he belongs, to the fact that he is 
endowed with instincts. 

The characteristics of instinct have often been de- 
scribed by philosophers, but in general they have been 
defined with an exactness too absolute. 

Thus, it is affirmed that instinct is unconscious, and 
that it is characterized by an ignorance of the end which 
it pursues, and of the act which it accomplishes. 

This is not true except with certain reservations. 
All instinct is not necessarily blind. We are not pre- 
pared, for example, to admit that in the child the 
instinct to take nourishment is absolutely deprived of 
consciousness. The intense delight so early mani- 
fested by the infant when it approaches its nurse's 
breast, is a proof that it is conscious, in some degree, 
from the first, of the satisfaction given to its need of 
nutrition. 

And, again, it is said that instinct attains immediate 
and infallible perfection without study. More careful 
observation will prove, I think, that even bees and ants, 
in their marvellous constructions, do not entirely escape 
the need of feeling their way, but that even they are 
sometimes guilty of blunders. 

It is truer to say that instinct is special, and that it 
applies itself to only one thing, to one determined end. 



48 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

A bird does not construct every kind of nest, but a nest 
of a certain form. 

48. How Far Instinct is Invariable. — Another char- 
acteristic of instinct, it is said, and the consequence of 
the preceding, is the absohite invariabiUty or uniform- 
ity of the same actions, always identical throughout the 
centuries. The bees of Virgil and those of our day, we 
are told, construct their hives in the same manner. 
We do not deny that instinctive actions have a general 
resemblance ; but we believe they admit of a certain 
variability though it may be very limited. 

Berthelot,* for example, relates that for a period of 
twenty-five years, he observed in the forest of Sevres, a 
colony of ants, and that he there gathered undeniable 
facts which prove that animal societies are not abso- 
lutely immobile. 

" I was able to observe," he says, " in my ant-hill, an 
emigration e7i viassc. It was at the end of summer. 
The ant-hill, situated by a road frequented by pedes- 
trians, had often been ravaged by their malevolent 
curiosity. Obliged again and again to reconstruct their 
dwelling-place, the ants finally became discouraged. 
One day, as I was passing over this road, I observed 
that it was traversed obliquely by a long column of 
ants. The next day, and the day following, the black 
column was in ceaseless march. Surprised at this per- 
severance, I followed the column. It moved toward 
the middle of the forest, not following any trail previ- 



PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 49 

oiisly made by ants. It marched without division 
through dead leaves, weeds, and roots of trees, towards 
a spot evidently selected in advance. The march was 
three hundred metres in length. It ended amid trees 
at the foot of a shrub, on the top of a little sandy ridge 
of difficult approach and overlooking an old paved road. 
There a new ant-hill was in process of formation, partly 
below the surface, and in part above it. The emigra- 
tion lasted the whole autumn. In the following spring 
the ancient village was deserted, but the new one was 
full of activity. But the new site had not been well 
chosen. If, by reason of its situation, it was out of the 
reach of pedestrians, it was, on the other hand, on the 
lower edge of a grassy slope over which water ran 
whenever it stormed. The ant-hill, flooded with water 
from time to time, never regained its early prosperity, 
but dwindled away, and after a few years completely 
disappeared, just as a city would have done that had 
often been ravaged by flood or pestilence." ^ 

49. Conscious Movements. — If it is really true that 
there is some conscious, and hence psychological, ele- 
ment in instinctive acts ; if instinct supposes a certain 
degree of representation, however vague we may imag- 
ine it to be, of means to be employed, of an end to be 
reached ; it is true that instinctive movements involve 
consciousness only to slight degree. It is otherwise 
with certain movements that occur quite early in the 
child's life, and that are caused by his emotions ; as, 

1 Berthelot : Science ct P/iiloso/hie, p. 176. 



50 ELEMENTS OE PSYCHOLOGY 

for example, when a child who is terrified starts sud- 
denly backwards and conceals himself in the arms of 
his nurse ; or when he experiences a feeling of pleasure 
caused by seeing a luminous object, which his eye 
follows as long as he can see it. 

Here, doubtless, as in certain reflex actions, the 
presence of an exterior object seems to be the cause of 
a movement, while in reality it is only the occasion of 
it. In such cases there is not simply a transmission of 
an external excitation which is communicated to nerves 
and muscles ; but there is between the exterior agent 
and the movement a conscious medium, fear, surprise, 
some pleasure or pain ; so that in these cases the move- 
ment has for an antecedent, not merely a blind disposi- 
tion, or a physical excitation, but a conscious operation, 
a psychological fact. 

50. The Beginning of Voluntary Activity. — The in- 
stinctive life in man is but an accident, a provisional 
state, a regency, so to speak, which prepares for the 
establishment of a permanent royalty, that of the 
reflective will. Through the mediation of instinct, 
nature, as it were, holds the child by the hand till 
the approaching moment when he can walk alone. 
Thus, from the earliest period of life, the will tends 
to disengage itself from instinct, and it is not long 
before the first intentional movements begin to show 
themselves. 

The child early finds in his nascent desires the 



PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 



51 



starting-point of an activity wholly spontaneous, wholly 
conscious, which is a foreshadowing of the will. 

Here is a child eight months old ; the moment his 
nurse takes him in her arms, in the morning, he at once 
pats her on the back to signify that he wishes to take a 
walk ; for before enjoying the pleasure of walking by 
himself, the child is very fond of walking as he is 
carried by others ; * as his nurse approaches the door 
which he is to pass, he is in a flutter of excitement 
which is clearly significant. At the same age, the 
child is seen to move his head and his eyes in a given 
direction in order to find an object that he desires to 
see. If you conceal yourself near him he will readily 
bend, stoop, or turn, so as to find you. Consequently, 
at this age, the child has control of his little limbs and 
governs them ; he is their master. Not of them all, 
doubtless ; for all are not destined to become servants 
of the will. During our whole life, many acts which 
presuppose muscular movements, as respiration for 
example, will remain independent of our will. But, at 
least, the child has already acquired the possession of 
certain parts of the muscular system ; in his way he 
controls them as well as a grown man. And in matu- 
rity, as well as in infancy, desire, intention, and will, 
will continue to act upon the muscles and to produce 
regulated and concerted movements ; while conscious- 
ness never informs us how a given movement of the 
body follows the conscious intent. 



52 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

J^ 51. How the Child Learns to Walk. — One of the 

great events in the Hfe of a child is his first step. At 
the same time, it is one of the acts which best show 
that intermixture which characterizes human nature as 
distinguished from animal nature, — that perpetual 
intermingling of instinct with effort and of automatic 
and mechanical tendencies with conscious intent. Chil- 
dren spend much time in learning* to walk. It has 
been observed that a child that is early in speaking is 
late in walking, and vice versa. This is probable, for 
nature hardly likes to make two efforts at once. What 
is certain is that locomotion is a real study for the 
child. The animal, on the contrary, often begins to 
frisk about at birth, and the bird flies almost the instant 
it comes from the ^gg. The child feels his way for a 
longtime. At first he will raise himself on his mother's 
knees and will stiffen the muscles of his legs so as to 
keep upon his feet ; then he will learn to make the 
alternate, the rhythmic movement which constitutes 
walking ; and finally, he will dare to risk himself alone 
in space, and it is here that the intention manifests 
itself under the form of intense desire, of daring, and 
of the voluntary pursuit of an end. The child will 
make his first attempt by clinging to the hand or to 
the clothing of the one who leads him ; he will try to 
balance himself upon his feet ; finally, after some falls, 
he will advance all alone, fixing his eyes upon the 
person he wishes to reach, and consequently manifest- 



PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 53 

ing a voluntary effort. And the joy which beams in 
his eyes when he has thus conquered space is a clear 
proof of the intensity of his effort and of the feeling 
arising from the difificulty overcome. 

52. Physical Habits. — It is not intentional effort 
alone, united with instinctive tendencies, that deter- 
mines physical movements. Habit here plays a great 
part, and this from the earliest years of life. It is one 
of the essential laws of our nature that every act tends 
to reproduce itself for the sole reason that it has once 
been produced. We acquire a disposition to do over 
again what we have already done, and to do it the 
second time with greater facility and certainty. The 
intensity of the necessary effort decreases in propor- 
tion as the power of habit increases. In fact, habit 
has all the characteristics of instinct ; but it is an 
acquired instinct, a second nature. 

Walking, writing, musical execution, speech itself, 
all the movements which at first are based on instinct 
or on intentional effort, very soon become habitual acts 
to which we resign ourselves almost without thinking 
of them. 

53. Physical Activity in the Mature Man. — It is par- 
ticularly in the child that we have studied physical 
activity, because, in his case, it presents well-marked 
characteristics, because it is there more directly subject 
to organism and to instinct, and also because physical 
activity is nearly the whole of infant life. But during 



54 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the whole period of life, physical activity remains one of 
the essential attributes of human nature. Only, with the 
progress of age, the part played by instinct diminishes, 
and physical actions depend more and more upon will 
and habit. We voluntarily place ourselves at our desk 
to write, but it is habit that guides our hand and places 
the letters upon the paper. We voluntarily decide to 
take a walk, but it is habit that guides our feet and 
determines the movements of our limbs. 

But the physical activity of the man will in more 
than one case preserve the characteristics of the phys- 
ical activity of the child. While we are engaged in the 
toil of thought, or in the reveries of the imagination, 
many gestures will escape us which will have no inten- 
tional cause, but which, like the mobility of the child, 
will be the result of the spontaneous excitation of the 
nerve centres. 

SUMMARY. 

10. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY is the power of acting upon 
the muscles and of producing bodily movements. 

11. Before being voluntary and CONSCIOUS, physical 
activity is at first FATAL and BLIND ; it is determined by 
obscure and unconscious causes, as the excitation of nerve 
centres, heredity, instinct, etc. 

12. In the child the movements are either SPONTANE- 
OUS or PROVOKED. When they are unconscious they 
constitute what are called reflex actions. 



PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 55 

13. REFLEX ACTIONS consist in a nervous excitation 
followed by a contraction of the muscles ; the cause of the 
nervous excitation may be either an exterior impulse or a 
spontaneous impulse of the nerve centres. 

14. The INSTINCTS are systems of reflex action ; the 
movements which they determine are distinguished from 
other spontaneous movements in being prescribed, regulated, 
and directed toward an end ; and they differ from spontane- 
ous movements in being ignorant of the end toward which 
they tend. 

15. However, INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS presuppose 
a certain representation of the means to be employed in 
order to reach a proposed end ; they are neither as infalli- 
ble nor as invariable as certain philosophers affirm. 

16. CONSCIOUS MOVEMENTS, which arise from 
emotions of the sensibility, early manifest themselves in 
the child. 

17. INTENTIONAL and VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS 

are also displayed at an early period. The will plays a cer- 
tain part, as, for example, in learning to walk. 

18. Habit intervenes in physical activity, as in writing, in 
the execution of music, etc. 



56 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER III 

PHYSICAL SENSIBILITY: PLEASURE AND PAIN, SEN- 
SATIONS AND FEELINGS, WANTS AND APPETITES 

54. Definition of Sensibility — With the sensibility, 
we actually enter the world of consciousness. There 
are, as we well know, unconscious movements ; but 
an unconscious sensibility would be something incom- 
prehensible, a pure contradiction in terms A sensible 
being is necessarily conscious of what he feels. *' I 
feel," is synonymous with '' I am conscious of a sensa- 
tion or of a feeling." 

Common to animals and men in some of its mani- 
festations, sensibility, under all its forms, may be 
defined as the faadty of experiencing pleasure a7id pain, 
and, consequently, of loving and of Jiating. 

55. Different Meanings of the Word Sensibility. — 
Sensible or sensitive phenomena, in the precise lan- 
guage of psychology, are essentially agreeable or disa- 
greeable phenomena which suppose, or, on the contrary, 
provoke, the existence of an inclination or of an aver- 
sion. They must not be confounded with the intellect- 
ual phenomena which generally accompany them, and 
which certain philosophers are wrong in connecting 
with the sensibility. 



PHYSICAL SENSIBILITY 57 

Thus the child opens his eyes to the hght and sees 
the colors which charm his eyes and the appearance of 
which delights him. In this case, two very distinct 
phenomena are produced in him : the pleasure which 
the brilliant color procures tor him, which is a fact of 
sensibility, and the perception, the knowledge of the 
color, which is a fact of intelligence. (See Chapter VI.) 
56 Sensitive Facts and Intellectual Facts. — Sensi- 
tive facts and intellectual facts are thus distinguished 
from one another as follows : the first are purely ajfcc- 
five, — they constitute an inner state of the soul, as 
pleasure or pain ; the second, on the contrary, are repre- 
seiitative, — they teach us something about the nature 
of external objects. 

Sensibility and intelligence are not merely differences 
of 7iat?ire. Although they often co-exist, — the most 
of our pleasures and pains being accompanied by the 
representation of the object which causes them, — 
there are cases where the two faculties act separately 
and prove that they are independent of each other. 
Certain states of pain or indefinable discomfort affect 
our sensibility, and yet our intelligence may not know 
and not represent to itself the cause of them. The 
same thing is true of certain mysterious impressions of 
comfort and pleasure. On the other hand, the greater 
number of our intellectual representations appear to 
our consciousness without any intermixture of pleasure 
or pain. Whether it be the nature of the object, or 



58 ELEMENTS OF rSYCIIOLOGY 

the effect of the habit, we remain indifferent before the 
most of our thoughts. We study geometry without 
finding in it the pleasure which made Pascal* tremble 
in the presence of certain theorems. 

57 Evolution of Sensibility. — Conscious in all its 
degrees, sensibility is nevertheless not always identical 
with itself. It extends from the humblest actions of 
animal life, from the phenomena of physical activity 
which we have already studied and with which it 
mingles pleasures and pains, up to the highest mani- 
festations of the moral life which it saddens or embel- 
lishes with agreeable or painful emotions. 

In the child, sensibility begins by associating itself 
with the functions of organic life. No doubt, the nurs- 
ling, impelled by the need of nutrition, experiences an 
extreme pleasure in clinging to the breast of its mother. 
Later on, sensibility connects itself with the represen- 
tations of the exterior world of which the five senses 
are the source ; there are pleasures of seeing, hearing, 
etc. Later still, sensibihty, emerging from ourselves 
and reaching beyond selfishness, attaches us to animals 
or to our fellows. A child smiles upon its mother, and 
its smile is the expression of its affection. Finally, 
when the intelligence is ripe for abstract ideas, the sen- 
sibility allows itself to be moved by these ideas. A 
train of sweet or painful emotions accompanies the 
most elevated thoughts ; our heart beats for justice, for 
truth, for native land. 



PHYSICAL SENSIBILITY 



59 



58. Physical Sensibility and Moral Sensibility. — Sen- 
sibility will therefore vary according to the nature of 
the causes which excite it, or the objects which pro- 
voke it. 

At one time, the sensitive phenomenon has for 
immediate antecedent or cause an organic need, as the 
need of eating, — a physical impression, the contact of 
a soft body ; and in this case it is called a sensation, 
and we connect it with physical sensibility. 

At another time, on the contrary, pleasures and pains 
will have for their object, and consequently for their 
antecedent or cause, an idea or conception of the mind, 
a moral phenomenon ; for example, the idea of a fault 
which causes the pain of remorse, or the idea of a beau- 
tiful act which engenders the pleasure of admiration ; 
and then they are called feelings, and are to be con- 
nected with the moral sensibility. 

59. Sensations and Feelings. — Sensations, conse- 
quently, may be defined as pleasures or pains which 
immediately follow a material phenomenon : for exam- 
ple, a burn, some lesion of the organs, the pleasure of 
walking, the satisfaction of the needs of nutrition, etc. 

The feelings, on the contrary, are the pleasures and 
the pains which have for immediate antecedent a psy- 
chological phenomenon or intellectual representation : 
as the idea of our virtues or of our faults, giving rise to 
the pleasures and the pains of self-love ; or the idea of 
our parents or of our friends, giving rise to family 



6o ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

affection, the joys of friendship, etc. "The sensa- 
tions," says Sully,* " proceed from nervous excitation ; 
the feelings, on the contrary, depend on one of the 
forms of mental activity." ^ 

It results from this difference of origin that the sen- 
sations may always be localized in a part of the body, 
or in the organ where the need is manifested or the im- 
pression is produced : for example, I have the headache 
or a pain in the stomach ; I have burned my arm, or my 
hand is agreeably affected by warmth or by cold. The 
feelings, on the contrary, are not localized in the body. 
It is by a simple figure of speech that common language 
asserts that the heart is the seat of the feelings, by 
reason, doubtless, of the brisker movement which the 
emotions of the sensibility impress on the movement of 
the blood and the beating of the heart. 

We now understand why the study of physical 
sensibility may and should precede the study of the 
intelligence ; while the study of moral sensibility, of 
which we shall not speak till later (see chapters XIV. 
and XV.), supposes a previous knowledge of intellectual 
phenomena. 

60. Different Designations of Sensitive Phenomena. — 
The phenomena of sensibility play so large a part in 
human life, and present so many complications and 
delicate shades, that common language has multiplied 
expressions and words, that are almost synonymous, to 

1 Teacher's Handbook of Psychology, New York, 1886. 



PHYSICAL SENSIBILITY 6l 

designate their various forms. Before going farther, 
let us put a little order into this usual vocabulary of the 
sensibility. 

Pleasures and joys are properly distinguished as fol- 
lows : the first are physical pleasures ; the latter, pleas- 
ures of the soul : — the pleasures of taste and smell ; 
family joys, and the joys of friendship. 

The term emotions, brought into use by the English 
psychologists, may be applied to all the phenomena of 
the sensibility, physical and moral ; it is synonymous 
with sensitive facts. 

Passions express a violent pursuit of pleasure, — 
dominant and exclusive inclinations. 

Finally, appetites and propensities, inclinations and 
affections, are different words that designate the tend- 
encies of the sensibility ; the first toward material 
good; the last toward moral good: — the first toward 
selfish satisfaction ; the last toward disinterested satis- 
faction. 

61. The Essential Elements of Every Sensitive Phe- 
nomenon. — Whatever may be their difference in origin 
and nature, the sensations and the feelings present to 
us the same essential phenomena : — 

1. Inclinations or Aversions. 

2. Pleasures and Pains. 

Every sensation, every feeling, is at once an inclina- 
tion or an aversion for a given object, and an impression 



62 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of pleasure or of pain ; so that the general theory of 
sensibility is the same for sensations and for feelings. 

62. Pleasure and Pain. — It is not proposed to define 
pleasure and pain ; they are simple elementary phe- 
nomena irreducible to any other, which every one 
knows sufficiently through his own experience. 

But if it is impossible and useless to define these 
states of consciousness, it is necessary to explain them, 
that is, to make known their causes. 

63. Pleasure and Inclination. — The cause of pleasure 
is nothing but the inclination or tendency to act in one 
way or in another. On the contrary, it is sometimes 
said that inclination is the effect of the pleasure felt ; 
and it is very certain that a consequence of the pleas- 
ure is to heighten the inclination and to give it full 
consciousness of itself. We have no decided inclina- 
tion for hunting until after having tasted the pleasures 
of hunting, for play until after having played, nor for 
tobacco until after having smoked. But it is none the 
less true that every pleasure supposes a previous incli- 
nation, a natural tendency, conscious or unconscious ; 
conscious when the need or the desire precedes the ac- 
tion ; but often unconscious, though not less real, when 
it reveals itself only through the very pleasure which 
is experienced in satisfying it. In the child still inex- 
perienced, pleasure often precedes inclination, and a 
skilful teacher may thus inspire him with tastes which 
he never suspected. 



PHYSICAL SENSIBILITY 63 

Pleasure is then an inclination that is satisfied ; and 
pain, an inclination that is opposed. 

64. The Laws of Pleasure and Pain. - Let US take 
examples to illustrate the relations of inclination with 
pleasure and pain. 

We have a tendency or inclination to walk ; and if 
we walk moderately, without going beyond our strength, 
we experience pleasure ; but if the walk is prolonged, 
if it is a forced march, we have a sense of fatigue and 
of discomfort. We naturally love light and colors ; 
and a mild light and vivid colors impress us agreeably ; 
but a dazzling light or a loud color offends us and 
makes us suffer. 

We have a natural taste for reading and study ; but 
just as reading and study refresh and delight us when 
we apply ourselves to them in moderation ; so we 
experience pain if we impose them forcibly, or for too 
long a time, upon our jaded mind. 

It follows from these examples, selected out of thou- 
sands, that pleasure is the natural consequence of the 
moderate and appropriate exercise of each of the organs 
of our body, or of each of our spiritual faculties. A 
moderate action of the senses, of the muscular energies, 
or of the mental faculties, is accompanied with pleasure. 

If, on the contrary, the action goes beyond certain 
limits, the pleasure insensibly diminishes and is soon 
changed into discomfort and then into pain. 

Aristotle had already observed this : — 



64 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

' "It is in action," he said, "that comfort and happi- 
ness consist. Pleasure is not the act itself, nor an 
intrinsic quality of the act; but it is an adjunct which 
never fails it, it is a final perfection added to it, as 
bloom to youth. Each action has its own pleasure." 

" Pleasure," says Hamilton,* " is the reflex of the 
spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power, of 
whose energy we are conscious. Pain, a reflex of the 
over-strained or repressed exertion of such a power." ^ 

65. Consequences of these Laws. — In the light of 
these explanations, almost all the so-called caprices of 
the sensibility become simple and clear ; all its myste- 
ries vanish. 

Why, for example, does novelty always please us, 
while uniformity irritates and wearies us ? Because 
new things excite and call into play our surplus ener- 
gies, accumulated during inaction ; while these same 
energies are used up by exercises too prolonged or too 
frequently repeated. 

Why were we charmed yesterday by what displeases 
us to-day.'* Because, the object remaining the same, 
our personal dispositions have changed. Yesterday we 
were ready for action, for brain work, for walking ; 
while to-day we are no longer ready for them. 

Why has idleness so much attraction for some, while 
others find happiness only in action.? It is because all 
minds have not the same surplus of energy ; it is 

1 Sir William Hamilton: Lectures on Metaphysics^ p. 575. 



PHYSICAL SENSIBILITV 65 

because intellectual activity, which for some is the 
natural and easy display of the exuberant powers of 
the intelligence, is for others but constrained labor out 
of proportion to their resources. Moreover, the idle 
are afflicted with cjinui when they cannot apply them- 
selves to some favorite occupation. 

Why, again, are some objects always disagreeable, 
as black to the eyes and rhubarb to the taste .? Because 
the sensations which result from them have a tendency 
to oppose or to suppress the normal activity or natural 
exercise of our faculties ; for example, black gives to 
the organ of vision a sort of immobility or inactivity. 

But we are not to forget that pain does not result 
alone from excessive action ; it is also the consequence 
of forced inaction. There are negative pains, as priva- 
tion of light, or prolonged solitude, or immobility. 

There are positive pains, as excessive heat or violent 
effort. Between these two extremes, at an ec[ual dis- 
tance from inaction and an excess of activity, appears 
pleasure, the consequence of a medium activity, or, 
rather, of an activity directed in accordance with 
nature, conforming to our natural aims, and, at the 
same time, adjusted to the strength at the disposal of 
the individual. 

66. Correlation of Pleasure and Pain. — The correla- 
tion of pleasure and pain is also a consequence of the 
laws which we have just stated. Socrates* related 
that pleasure and pain were at first irreconcilable ene- 



66 ELEMENTS (3F PSYCHOLOGY 

mies, but that Jupiter, in order to re-establish peace, 
had united them by bands of gold, so that, like two 
companions in chains, they follow one another. And, 
in fact, the discomfort of hunger or thirst is followed 
by the pleasure of eating and drinking ; and every pri- 
vation, which is a suffering, is followed, the moment it 
ceases, by pleasure and enjoyment. Likewise, excessive 
pleasure engenders satiety, which is accompanied by 
discomfort. However, we do not believe, with certain 
psychologists, that the conscious life is an uninterrupted 
series of pleasures and pains. Whatever may be said to 
the contrary, there are neutral or indifferent states.^ 

67. What Lies at the Basis of Inclination. — We ex- 
plain pleasure by saying that it is the satisfaction of an 
inclination ; but the inclination itself, how are we to 
explain it } 

Inclination is the natural tendency to act in one 
direction or in another, and consequently to seek and 
to love whatever is in accordance with our activity, 
whatever is good ; and to shun and detest whatever 
is contrary to it, whatever is evil. 

Inclination is activity canalized, so to speak, by 
nature in different directions. 

In a sense we must say that the basis of inclination 
is love, the love of whatever promotes the conservation 
and development of our being. 

1 To prove that man is never " in a neutral state without joy or sorrow," 
F. Marion is obliged to admit " unconscious joys and sorrows," which is a pure 
contradiction. Lemons de Psychologic,'^. 2ig. 



PHYSICAL SENSIIULITY 6/ 

At first unconscious, love instinctively seeks what- 
ever is agreeable to it. When it once possesses this 
it experiences pleasure ; and this pleasure, once felt, 
leaves in the consciousness the desire to find the 
agreeable object again. 

Desire is the conscious inclination which knows 
what it loves ; it is the recollection of a past pleasure 
and the aspiration for a new pleasure of the same 
kind. 

68. Classification of the Emotions. — Inclination and 
pleasure form a whole, an aggregate which by a single 
word we may call emotion. We have already seen that 
the emotions are to be classed under two great cate- 
gories, the sensations and Vciq feelings. 

The sensations or emotions of physical sensibility are 
themselves subdivided into two classes : i, the emo- 
tions which are connected with the organs of material 
life, and which depend upon the accomplishment of 
their functions: these are called wants^ or appetites; 
2, the emotions which result from the exercise of the 
five senses, taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch : 
these are the pleas?nrs of sense. 

69. The Appetites. — The wants or appetites are the 
inclinations of the organic life. There are as many 
wants or appetites as there are distinct functions in the 
organism. 

The characteristics of the appetites are those of all 
the sensations. Appetite is always preceded by a 



6S ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

physiological phenomenon, by an organic modification ; 
hunger and thirst correspond to a particular state of 
the digestive tracts ; consequently appetite is localized 
in a part of the body. 

Certain appetites are distinguished from other sensa- 
tions by their periodicity. Satisfied for a time, and 
appeased by satiety, they reappear at definite intervals, 
when, on the demand of the functions for renewed 
activity, the want reappears : for example, the want of 
nourishment, the want of sleep. 

70. Classification of the Appetites. — The list of appe- 
tites is as long as the list of organic functions. 

T\\Q^ functions of jmtrition (digestion, respiration, cir- 
culation, etc.) give rise to the appetite of hunger and 
thirst, which procure for us very keen enjoyment, and 
also the disagreeable sensations of nausea, of loathing, 
and of inanition. From the same source arise the need 
of warmth and the need of breathing ; but this last 
want is so permanent and so regularly satisfied by 
nature that we do not feel the pleasure resulting from 
it ; but, on the contrary, we experience discomfort and 
distress when this need is opposed, as in suffocation. 

To the functions of relation correspond the need of 
movement and a correlative need of repose and sleep. 

71. The Pleasures of the Senses. — The exercise of 
the five senses gives rise to appropriate pleasures of a 
higher order than the preceding. These pleasures, 
though rightly credited to the physical sensibility, are 



PHYSICAL SENSH5ILITY 69 

susceptible of modification under the action of the 
intelligence. The pleasures of sight become one of 
the essential sources of the aesthetic emotions, which 
we gain through the beautiful as realized in painting ; 
and the pleasures of hearing are associated with the 
feelings awakened by music. 

The pleasures of the five senses are, moreover, dis- 
tinguished from the pleasures of the organic life, in 
being, so to speak, disinterested ; they do not result 
from the necessary satisfaction of a need essential to 
existence ; they mediate between the material necessi- 
ties of the animal life and the noble and elevated con- 
templations of the intellectual life. 

72. Intrinsic Characteristics of the Pleasures. — Each 
pleasure and each pain is a special phenomenon, siii 
generis, irreducible to any other. The pain caused by 
a burn does not resemble the pain caused by a head- 
ache ; nor the pleasure excited by beautiful colors, the 
pleasure given by the audition of agreeable sounds. 
There are then as many species of pleasures and pains 
as there are of inclinations. 

However, psychologists have attempted to distin- 
guish the pleasures into several classes, according as 
they are U^ansieiit or durable, noble or lozv. 

This last distinction is the only one that deserves to 
be retained. Indeed, the emotions differ from each 
other according to the end toward which they tend. 
Distinct in their origin, they are also distinct in their 



70 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

aim. We could not place in the same rank in the 
moral hierarchy, the pleasures which tend merely to the 
conservation of material well-being, and those which, 
proceeding from the moral sensibility, tend to the 
development of our intellectual faculties. 

73. Physical Sensibility in the Animal, in the Child, 
and in the Man. — Physical sensibility is common to 
animals and men. All living flesh is penetrated with 
sensibility ; every organ is the seat of a need or tend- 
ency ; every physical function is the source of enjoy- 
ment or of suffering. 

But the intellectual faculties, more developed in man, 
impress on his physical sensibility particular character- 
istics ; memory and reflection render human emotions 
more durable and more intense. 

As between the child and the man, physical sensi- 
bility also presents notable differences. It is more 
acute in the child, first, because it is developed almost 
alone, and because neither moral sensibility nor intel- 
lectual reflection as yet intervenes to curb its vigor. 
The child is wholly absorbed in his physical joys and 
griefs. He throws into his laughter and into his tears 
an accent which attests the intensity of his emotions. 
Later, his preoccupations, the effort of his thought 
and will, will modify the impressions of the senses ; 
the mature man will enjoy less and suffer less in his 
appetites and in his senses. Probably nothing equals 
the intense joy of the first step or the first look. This 



PHYSICAL SENSIBILITY 7I 

difference is due also to the influence of habit. New 
and fresh, the emotions of the child are necessarily 
stronger ; in the mature man they tend to grow dull. 

SUMMARY. 

19. The SENSIBILITY is the faculty of experiencing 
pleasure or pain, and consequently of loving or hating. 

20. SENSITIVE FACTS are distinguished from intel- 
lectual facts in being AFFECTIVE j INTELLECTUAL 
FACTS are REPRESENTATIVE. 

21. Sensitive facts have for antecedent, either a physio- 
logical fact or a psychological fact ; in the first case they are 
called SENSATIONS, and in the second, FEELINGS. The 
sensations constitute the physical sensibility; the feelings 
the moral sensibility. 

22. MORAL SENSIBILITY, which presupposes the in- 
telligence, ought not to be studied until after the intelligence. 

23. The SENSATIONS are localized in an organ or in 
the part of the body where there is produced the physio- 
logical fact which precedes them. 

24. In sensation, as in feeling, we discover the constitu- 
ent elements of sensibility : i, pleasure and pain ; 2, inclina- 
tion. 

25. PLEASURE always supposes a previous incHnation, 
either conscious or unconscious. 

26. PLEASURE is a SATISFIED INCLINATION; 
PAIN, a THWARTED INCLINATION. 



72 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



27. Pleasure, results from a medium activity, in conform- 
ity with nature and adjusted to the powers at the disposal 
of the individual. Pain results either from forced inaction 
or from excessive action. 

28. At bottom, INCLINATION is nothing but the love 
of the good, — the pursuit of individual conservation and 
development. 

29. The SENSATIONS, or emotions of the physical 
sensibility, are divided into two categories: i, the appetites; 
2, the pleasures of the five senses. 

30. The APPETITES correspond to the different func- 
tions of the organic life. 

31. THE PLEASURES OF THE SENSES are interme- 
diate between the physical sensibility and the moral sensi- 
bility. 



THE INTELLIGENCE IN GENERAL J^ 



CHAPTER IV 

THE INTELLIGENCE IN GENERAL. DIVISION OF 
INTELLECTUAL FACTS 

74. Definition of the Intelligence. — The intelligence is 
the complement of facts by means of which we represent 
to ourselves either an object, or the relation betvv^een 
two or more objects. Considered as the principle of 
all these facts, it may be defined as X\\q faculty of think- 
ing. In fact, to think is the same thing as to know 
and to comprehend. To know is to represent to one's 
self a given object ; to comprehend is to grasp the rela- 
tion between one object and another. 

Etymologically, the intelligence (from the Latin verb 
hitclligd) signifies exclusively the faculty of compre- 
hending. But it is more exact to assign to it also the 
simple facts of knowledge. The sense-knowledge of 
exterior things, as the perception of a color or of a 
sound, although derived from the senses, is yet at the 
same time an intellectual fact. 

., 75. The Relation of the Intelligence to the Other 
Faculties. — We cannot be too thoroughly convinced of 
the truth that psychological phenomena, whatever their 
diversity, are ever tending to mingle and combine. 



74 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY ,. 

Psychological analysis alone distinguishes and separates 
them, just as chemical analysis separates a compound 
body into its simple elements. 

In the living reality of the consciousness there is not 
a single fact of the sensibility which is not accompanied 
by an intellectual fact ; there is at least the conscious- 
ness of pleasure or of pain, or the knowledge of the 
object which provokes the inclination or the aversion. 
And so the will always supposes an intellectual fact ; 
to will is to determine ourselves towards an action 
which we know ; it is to tend toward an end which we 
represent to ourselves. 

Let us note that the intelligence alone, as distin- 
guished from the other faculties, is capable of independ- 
ent development, — it need not involve any sensitive 
or volitional fact in its activity. Doubtless the thinker 
is absolutely independent neither of the sensibility nor 
of the will. In his meditations, Descartes was very 
often sustained in his thoughts by the pleasure he 
found in them, and especially by his will, which imposed 
on him a law to pursue his course of reasoning. Usu- 
ally, thinking does not proceed without a secret enjoy- 
ment of spirit, nor without an intense attention ; but 
attention is the will directing the intelligence. In cer- 
tain cases, however, we judge and reason without add- 
ing any emotion to our judgments and reasonings, 
without having need of effort and will in order to pur- 
sue our thoughts. The geometrician who pursues the 



THE INTELLIGENCE IN GENERAL 75 

demonstrations of his theorems is but pure thought, 
he acts only intellectually. 

76. The Understanding. — The word intelligence is now 
sanctioned by usage to designate all the facts which 
have the common characteristic of being thoughts. 
The word ''understanding," formerly much employed, is 
adapted to designate only the highest acts of the intel- 
ligence, those which do not require the co-operation of 
the five senses. 

The physicist who observes the qualities of bodies is 
engaged in the work of intelligence ; but he is employ- 
ing his understanding when he reasons in order to 
establish physical laws, or to explain the phenomena of 
nature. The geometrician who is incessantly reasoning 
is making constant use of his understanding. 

The ancient philosophers sharply distinguished sense- 
operations, as sense-perception, memory, and imagina- 
tion, from intellectual operations, such as generalization, 
judgment, and reasoning; and only the latter were 
referred to the understanding. It seems more just to 
include under one category all the facts of thought, 
whatever may be their source, — whether they are 
derived from sense-perception, or from a subsequent 
travail and proper elaboration of the mind. 

77. Evolution of the Intelligence. — The intelligence 
manifests itself in the child from the day when he 
knows his mother, or when he distinguishes the objects 
which his senses present to him. But enveloped at 



76 ELExMEiNTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

first in the impressions of sense, the intelligence is 
developed little by little ; or, rather, facts of another 
order succeed the first perceptions of the senses. Pre- 
served by the memory, the particular representations 
which are gradually accumulated in the mind give rise 
to comparisons from which are insensibly disengaged 
abstract or general ideas, which no longer represent 
particular objects, but their relations. 

In other terms, the intelligence, which is at first but 
the mirror of things, gradually acquires its proper 
vitality. 

It reacts on the elements of knowledge which are 
furnished it by sense-perception and by consciousness ; 
takes possession of them, modifies them, transforms 
them, rises to the highest conceptions ; and by reason- 
ing gives extension to the primitive knowledge. 

In a word, the mechanism of the intelligence sup- 
poses both data or original matter, and an action exer- 
cised by the intelligence itself in order to make use of 
these elementary data and to transform this original 
matter. 

78. The Innate in the Intelligence. — The intelligence 
is not merely a vase which is gradually filled with the 
knowledge which the senses and the consciousness are 
daily pouring into it ; but it is a self -existing force 
which has its own tendencies, instincts, and its inflex- 
ible laws. 

Not only does each intelligence derive from heredity 



THE INTELLIGENCE IN GENERAL 77 

and its own nature greater or less vivacity, power, and 
aptness better to comprehend a given order of truths ; 
but every intelligence, from the simple fact of being an 
intelligence, carries with it, from the first, principles 
which direct all its operations. 

These principles constitute what is called the reason, 
that is, all that is innate in intelligence, as distinguished 
from experience, that is, from all that is acquired. 

79. The Elements of the Intelligence : Idea and Judg- 
ment. — However diverse the forms of the intelligence, 
we find the same elements in all its manifestations. 
The elementary intellectual fact is the representation, 
or, in other terms, the idea : either a sensible and par- 
ticular idea, as a man, a tree ; or an abstract and general 
idea, as humanity, vegetables, etc. 

But ideas simply by themselves do not constitute the 
life of the spirit, the activity of the intelligence. The 
intelligence truly acts only when it associates ideas, 
that is, when it judges, when it affirms ; and, in fact, it 
is always judging. Judgment is the fundamental act 
of the intelligence ; it is to thought what respiration is 
to the body. 

If there were but isolated ideas succeeding each other 
in the mind without some bond to associate them, the 
mind would be like a dictionary of words containing a 
list of all the substantives and adjectives in the lan- 
guage. In order that these words may have a value, 
they must be joined one to another, they must be 



yS ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

united by the verb fo be. So likewise, in order that the 
intelligence may act, ideas must be united one with 
another in order to form judgments which language 
translates into propositions or sentences. 

80. Judgment the Essential Act of the Intelligence. — 
Let us take the different intellectual facts one by one, 
and we shall discover that they all consist in judging. 

External perception, even under its most elementary 
form, is the affirmation at least of the existence of the 
object perceived. I affirm or I judge that this color 
exists or that I hear this sound. In a higher degree, 
external perception is the affirmation of the relation 
which I detect between two sensible ideas : this table 
is square, this flower is red. 

The consciousness or inner perception is but the 
series of judgments which we form on the facts that 
take place within us. I feel a pain, is equivalent to this 
judgment : / affirm that I feel a pain. To have the 
consciousness of psychological phenomena is nothing 
else than to affirm their existence. 

Memory is also a collection of judgments: I judge 
that I once saw such a person, or that two days ago I 
took such a walk. 

Imagination itself terminates in judgments, and the 
ideas which it suggests to us have no significance 
unless they are united one to another. The landscape 
which I imagine is green ; the shade contributes to its 
freshness. 



THE INTKLLIGENCE IN GENERAL 79 

The reason has often been defined as the faculty of 
ideas and first truths. Now truth is but a judgment, a 
judgment in conformity with reality. 

Abstraction and generalization are in a sense but the 
sources of abstract and general ideas ; but these ideas 
never present themselves separately save in dictiona- 
ries ; in the mind they are always combined with each 
other or with particular ideas in order to form judgments. 
" The Frenchman " (general idea) " is malicious " 
(another general idea). "I love" (particular idea) ''hu- 
manity " (general idea). Finally, reasoning is nothing 
but a succession of judgments connected in such a way 
that the mind on comparing them derives from them a 
new judgment. 

81. Division of Intellectual Facts. — Nothing is more 
varied than intellectual facts ; hence, nothing is more 
complicated than their division and classification. 

This diversity in intellectual facts occurs in various 
ways : first, by reason of the nature of the objects 
which the intelligence represents to itself (the material 
qualities of external objects, or the phenomena of 
spirit) ; next, according as the intelligence acquires its 
knowledge for the first time (perception), or has only 
to preserve it (memory) ; then, according as the intel- 
ligence derives its ideas from itself (reason), or receives 
them from experience (sense and consciousness) ; and 
lastly, according as the intelligence is simply the mirror 
in which objects are reflected, or as it becomes the 



8o ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

active agent which elaborates the materials furnished 
by the primary faculties (abstraction, generalization, 
reasoning). 

82. General Scheme of the Intellectual Functions. — 
In view of the different considerations which we have 
just indicated we offer the following classification of the 
facts and functions of the intelligence : — 

1. Functions of Acqidsition, also called the faculties 
of intuition, of immediate perception, or of experience : 
namely, the semises and the conscioiisness. The senses 
are as the windows of the house inhabited by the intel- 
ligence ; consciousness is the light which illumines the 
interior of the dwelling. 

2. The Functions of Conservation. — These preserve 
or hold the knowledge furnished by the senses and by 
consciousness, or the knowledge which results from the 
subsequent functions of the intelligence. They are the 
memory and the representative imagination. 

3. The Functions of Elaboi-ation aiid of Combination. 
— These appropriate the materials or data of the con- 
sciousness and the senses, compare them, associate 
them by an effort of reflection, and by means of this 
elaboration succeed in constituting the intelligence. 
They are the creative imagination, abstraction, general- 
ization, and reasoning. 

The reason has not been mentioned in this scheme, 
because, in truth, it is not a particular function of the 
intelligence ; it is the intelligence itself in its native 



THE INTELLIGENCE IN GENERAL 8 1 

constitution and innate laws. The reason dominates 
all the intellectual operations ; it is the reason which 
directs them and makes them possible. 

83. Analysis of a Page of Descartes. — A very useful 
exercise for leading us to recognize the different intel- 
lectual functions consists in analyzing some author's 
train of thoughts. 

Let us take, for example, a page of Descartes : — 

" In my younger days I had studied logic as a branch of 
philosophy, and geometrical analysis and algebra as branches 
of mathematics, three arts, at least, which it would seem 
could contribute something to my purpose" {memory: Des- 
cartes recollects what he studied while young). " But on exam- 
ining them " {attention^ a^talysis), " I came to the conclusion 
that as to logic, its syllogisms and the most of its other direc- 
tions serve to explain to another the things which he already 
knows rather than to teach him what is new" {Judgment : 
Descartes asserts that logic is not useful for the discovery of 
truth). " And though it contains many very true and excel- 
lent precepts, there are nevertheless so many others scat- 
tered among them that are either mischievous or superflu- 
ous " (abstract and general ideas), " that it is almost as difficult 
to separate them as to extract a Diana or a Minerva from a 
block of marble which has not been touched by the chisel " 
{imaginatio7i : Descartes represeiits to himself the work of the 
sculptor fashioning a statue). " Then, — as to the analysis of 
the ancients and the algebra of the moderns, besides the fact 
that they are applicable only to very abstract matters, the 
first is always so restricted to the consideration of diagrams 



82 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

that it cannot exercise the understanding without greatly 
wearying the imagination. And in algebra we are so tied 
down to certain rules that we have made of it a confused 
and obscure art which embarrasses the mind, rather than a 
science which cultivates it. This is what caused me to 
think that I must look for another method, which, compris- 
ing the advantages of these three, might be exempt from all 
their defects " {deductive reasoning : Descartes' syllogism might 
be fortnuJated as follows : — Major premise : the human mind 
needs a method ; Minor premise : logic^ geometry^ and alge- 
bra are ifisufficient methods ; Conclusioti : we must therefore 
seek for a new method). "And as the multiplicity of laws 
often furnishes excuses for crime, so that the state is best 
governed when it has a very few laws which are strictly 
observed ; so in place of the great number of precepts of 
which logic is composed I think I would be satisfied with the 
four following" {inductive i-easoning by analogy: Descartes 
having observed what takes place ifi governments where 
affairs are inuch better regulated where the laws are few, 
concludes that it is also wise to reduce the laws of logic to a 
small number). 

Save examples of sense-perception, v^hich naturally 
occur but very seldom in the abstract meditations of a 
philosopher, the page which we have just analyzed 
presents to us almost all the varieties of intellectual 
labor. 

If we wish really to enter into ourselves and to take 
account of the operations which succeed one another 



THK INTELLIGENCJ^ IN (iKNKRAl. S^ 

in our consciousness during a quarter of an hour of 
reflection, we will find with the same facility, in the 
fabric of our thoughts, the different threads which com- 
pose it ; some of which are borrowed from outward 
perception, some from the memory, some from the 
imagination, and some from the purely intellectual 
operations of abstraction and generalization. 

84. Conditions of the Development of the Intelligence. 

— First of all, the intelligence presupposes material or 
data ; it will be rich in proportion as the senses have 
been well employed, as they have gathered up from our 
environment an abundance of notions or ideas, and as 
the living consciousness has revealed to us a copious 
supply of inward impressions. Guiding principles are 
also necessary to the intelligence ; and they are assured 
to man by his very nature, by his native constitution, 
and by his prerogative of reason. But in order to 
guarantee the development of the intelligence, certain 
other conditions are required which are not always 
realized. 

85. Physiological Conditions : the Brain and Thought. 

— General physical health is of importance in the 
development of thought ; sound thought is generally 
connected with a sound body. Relations still more 
intimate exist between the intelligence and the brain. 
The brain is evidently the organ of thought, just as 
the eye is the organ of vision. We would not say that 
the brain is the principle of the intelligence ; but in 



84 ELEMENTS Ob PSYCHOLOGY 

the actual state of human nature it is the indispensable 
instrument of the intelligence. The loss of certain 
parts of the brain is followed by the disappearance of 
certain intellectual functions : just as the lack of cer- 
tain keys of a piano prevents the musician from produc- 
ing certain notes. 

The progressive development of the intelligence, 
from infancy to maturity, corresponds exactly with the 
development of the brain. 

''The brain," says an English psychologist, "like all 
other parts of the organism, grows in bulk or size, and 
develops or manifests certain changes in its formation 
or structure. The two processes, growth and develop- 
ment, do not progress with the same degree of rapidity. 
The size nearly attains its maximum about the end of 
the seventh year, whereas the degree of structural 
development reached at this time is not much above 
that of the embryonic condition." ^ 

86. Psychological Conditions : Attention. — But if the 
development of the intelligence has its physical condi- 
tions, it depends also, and perhaps in a still higher 
degree, on psychological conditions ; and the chief of 
these is attention. 

The attention was not given a place in the scheme of 
intellectual functions, because it is really not one of the 
particular faculties of the intelligence ; but it is the 
condition of the development of them all. To instinct- 

1 Sully : Ojitliiies of Psychology, London, 1884, p. 54. 



THE INTliLLIGKNCE IN GENERAL 85 

ive thought, which of itself will not proceed very far, 
there succeeds, by virtue of the attention, reflective 
thought. The lowest intellectual functions, external 
perception, for example, attain their full power only 
through the attention ; observing and listening are 
something more than seeing and hearing. As to the 
higher operations of the mind, they would hardly be 
possible without attention. Doubtless, when the pro- 
cess of reasoning has once been started, it may perhaps 
continue without effort, conducted by the simple impe- 
tus of thought ; but at least at the beginning of our 
meditations, we have need of attention in order to 
escape the yoke of sense-impressions and the fancies of 
the imagination, and to direct our thought towards the 
object of our researches. 

SUMMARY. 

32. The INTELLIGENCE, that is, the aggregate of intel- 
lectual facts, may be defined, the FACULTY of THINKING, 
that is, of knowing and comprehending, of knowing things 
and comprehending truths. 

33. The intelligence accompanies all the operations of the 
sensibility, since all these operations are at least conscious 
of themselves. It is the principle or basis of will, since the 
will presupposes the knowledge of what is willed. 

34. In its turn, the intelligence is supported by the pleas- 
ure which accompanies the act of thought, and by the will, 



86 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

which is the basis of attention. However, there are intellect- 
ual facts absolutely independent of the sensibility and the 
will. 

35. Intelligence is a word more comprehensive than 
UNDERSTANDING, which designates only intellectual op- 
erations, as ABSTRACTION and REASONING. It com- 
prehends the operations of sense, as PERCEPTION, 
MEMORY, and IMAGINATION, as well as the intellectual 
operations. 

36. Intelligence has for a starting-point SENSE-PER- 
CEPTION and CONSCIOUSNESS, in a word, EXPERI- 
ENCE. With these materials, and by a subsequent effort, 
it forms ABSTRACT IDEAS and GENERAL IDEAS; it 
gives extension to its primitive knowledge through the proc- 
ess of REASONING, and is aided in all its operations by 
the REASON. 

37. In all intellectual facts we discover the same ele- 
ments, namely, IDEAS, that is, the representations of things. 
These ideas themselves are always associated one with 
another by an act of afhrmation which constitutes the 
JUDGMENT. 

38. All the intellectual functions terminate in judgments. 

39. Intellectual facts are distributed under three great 
categories : — 

(1) FACTS OF ACQUISITION, outward perception of 
the senses, inward perception of the consciousness. 

(2) FACTS OF CONSERVATION, memory and repre- 



THE INTELLIGENCE IN GENERAL 87 

(3) FACTS OF COMBINATION AND ELABORATION, 

the creative imagination, abstraction, generalization, and 
reasoning. 

40. The REASON is not a special intellectual function ; 
it is the intelligence itself in its native constitution and its 
innate principles. 

41. The intelligence, while borrowing its data from ex- 
perience, and its laws from reason, still has need for its own 
development of certain conditions, some physical and physi- 
ological, as the BRAIN; the others, psychological, the 
principal of which is ATTENTION. 



88 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER V 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 

87. Consciousness and Attention. — Consciousness be- 
ing the general form of all the intellectual facts, it must 
necessarily be studied first. 

The same thing is true of attention, which in reality 
is but reflective consciousness, and of which we have 
already remarked that it constitutes the most important 
condition of intellectual development. 

Every psychological fact is conscious, that is to say, 
it knows itself the very moment when it is produced. 
On the other hand, every intellectual function, after 
having been accomplished at first spontaneously, may 
be reproduced with reflection, that is to say, under the 
power of the attention. 

It is therefore necessary, before examining the par- 
ticular operations of the mind, to consider their common 
character and also their reflective mode, namely, con- 
sciousness and attention. 

88. Conscience and Consciousness. — The word con- 
sciencc has a moral signification. A good conscience is 
the moral state of an honest soul ; and a bad conscience, 
of a dishonorable soul. Philosophy also employs the 
word in the same sense. Conscience, for the moralist, 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 89 

is the aggregate of feelings and judgments which are 
connected with morals ; it is the idea of the good and 
of duty ; it is repentance and remorse. 

On the other hand, conscioiLsness may be defined as 
the knowledge whicJi zuc have of ourselves, or still more 
correctly, the immediate knowledge which we have of 
each of the facts which occur in our sensibility, in our 
intelligence, and in our will. 

89. Characteristics of Consciousness. — Consciousness 
is ^perception, or rather an intuition, that is to say, it 
is knowledge immediate and native. 

To perceive is to know a particular object without 
intervention, at the first glance. We perceive a pain, a 
sound, a savor. Consciousness is inward perception ; 
the senses are the organs of outward perception. 

90. Perceiving and Conceiving. — In philosophical lan- 
guage, perception is sharply distinguished from concep- 
tion. 

Conception is a derivative, secondary operation of the 
intelligence. Through imagination we conceive a vast 
edifice, or the entire world. Through abstraction we 
conceive numbers, and through generalization, human- 
ity. Conception, moreover, does not necessarily involve 
a belief in the existence of the object conceived; it is 
not fatally bound up in a judgment. We can conceive 
a fine summer for the approaching season without be- 
lieving in it ; we can conceive humanity without affirm- 
ing anything of it for the moment. 



go ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Perception, on the contrary, always gives rise to a 
judgment. My consciousness, my senses, never present 
to me isolated ideas, but always affirmations based at 
least on the existence of the object perceived. 

91. Degrees of Consciousness. — Psychological phenom- 
ena in general, and those of consciousness in particular, 
are not absolute and invariable states. If they could 
be measured, it would be seen that they pass through 
very different stages, from a minimum almost equal to 
zero, up to a very high maximum. 

There are moments when a full light breaks m upon 
our minds ; we see with perfect clearness the least par- 
ticulars, the smallest details, of the thought present to 
our intelligence ; it is the broad daylight of conscious- 
ness. 

But in other cases, on the contrary, we discern with 
difficulty, confusedly and obscurely, the object of our 
thought ; it is the half glimmer of the twilight, which 
indeed scatters the shadows of the night, but does not 
wholly light us. 

" Psychological facts are susceptible of an infinite 
number of degrees, and, like them and with them, con- 
sciousness may decrease indefinitely without ceasing to 
be. There are atoms of consciousness in the world of 
the soul, just as there are atoms of matter in the phys- 
ical world." ^ 

92. Causes of the Variations in the Intensity of Con- 
sciousness. — The degree of consciousness depends in 

1 Rabier, o/>. ciL, p. 54. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 9I 

part upon the nature of the phenomena of which we 
take knowledge. The facts which have for immediate 
antecedents certain organic phenomena, as the appe- 
tites, for example, are scarcely conscious. On the con- 
trary, the facts of moral sensibility, of abstract intelli- 
gence, and of will, which depend only very indirectly on 
physiological functions, acquire a full consciousness of 
themselves. In other terms, in proportion as the facts 
become more psychological, the consciousness gains in 
power and clearness. In fact, consciousness is the very 
essence of psychological phenomena. It is not, properly 
speaking, a distinct faculty, but is the succession of 
moral facts which come to a knowledge of themselves 
as they are severally produced. 

Consequently, the degree of consciousness depends 
on all the causes which diminish or increase the inten- 
sity of psychological activity. Thus, in the first 
moments following our awakening, we have but a vague 
consciousness of ourselves ; our dreams are still pro- 
longed, and, the psychological life not having yet re- 
gained its entire lucidity, the consciousness feels the 
effect of it. 

Consciousness, in a word, is to the mind what light 
is to the flame. The more combustion increases, the 
more intense the flame and the more vivid and brilliant 
the light. 

93. Spontaneous Consciousness and Reflective Con- 
sciousness. — What we have just said is true only of the 



92 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



spontaneous consciousness which accompanies psycho- 
logical phenomena without effort. But the attention 
exercises its authority over consciousness, as over the 
other intellectual operations ; and consciousness then 
becomes reflection, that is, attention brought to bear on 
the phenomena of spirit. 

In this case the mind divides itself into two, so to 
speak ; the thinking subject becomes the object of 
thought, and through the attention, which is an effort 
or act of the will, we no longer simply see ourselves, 
but we observe ourselves. And this attentive notice 
doubles or triples the scope of vision ; to look atten- 
tively is to see with a magnifying glass or with a lens. 
This attentive consciousness, it has very often been 
said, is not in accord with the natural tendencies of the 
mind. We are but little inclined to throw ourselves 
back upon ourselves, hurried on as we are to observe 
what is about us. But a little effort and some experi- 
ence suffice to render this inward observation as famil- 
iar to us as outward observation. Psychologists and 
men of meditative disposition easily become capable of 
this self-observation, and of practising this art of reflec- 
tion which is the principle or basis of all psychological 
science. 

94. Are There Unconscious Phenomena ? — - Beyond 
and around the sphere which consciousness illumines, 
is there a zone of unconscious phenomena which ought, 
nevertheless, to be considered as psychological phenom- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 93 

ena ? Without making an abuse of the unconscious, as 
certain contemporary philosophers have done, Hart- 
mann,* for example, it is impossible not to recognize' 
around this luminous centre called consciousness, a 
twilight border which even extends into the shadows of 
the unconscious. 

Leibnitz long ago called attention to the fact that we 
are not always conscious of certain obscure, unobserved 
perceptions, so feeble that they are not observed in 
their passage, but which nevertheless leave a trace in 
our minds. Of this class, for example, is the noise of 
the mill which the sleepy miller does not seem to hear, 
but which nevertheless he does hear in a certain 
measure, for if the noise ceases the miller awakes. The 
same is true of the tiresome sermon whose monotonous 
delivery puts the hearer to sleep, but who awakes when 
the sermon is finished ; and of this class are the various 
impressions which the senses transmit to us while we 
read or meditate, indifferent to all that is transpiring 
around us, and of which we take no account till we are 
aroused from our reverie. It is well known that under 
the influence of fever or nervous agitation, invalids have 
been known to speak a language which they were not 
at all accustomed to use ; as, for example, the servant 
of Coleridge,* who spoke Hebrew while in a paroxysm 
of fever, because in her youth she had heard her master 
read aloud from his Hebrew Bible. Without suspect- 
ing it, the sounds of the unknown tongue were engraven 
on her memory. 



94 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

But these obscure perceptions are not properly speak- 
ing unconscious facts, but are facts of lesser or inter- 
mittent consciousness ; and, in fact, the mind, not being 
able to think of more than one thing at a time, ^ is ever 
passing from unconsciousness to consciousness. 

95. Kncwledge -which -we owe to Consciousness. — 
As consciousness accompanies all psychological facts, it 
is to it that we owe the knowledge of all intellectual 
and moral facts. 

We have no idea of remorse except as we have ex- 
perienced it ; we do not attach a definite meaning to ■• 
the words joy, sadness, ambition, and friendship, except 
as we have been conscious of these feelings. 

There are men whose consciousness is partly blind 
and deaf, just as, with respect to external perception, 
there are men who neither see nor hear ; because their 
minds are incomplete, inaccessible to certain psycho- 
logical phenomena. 

/ 96. The Idea of Self. — The consciousness is an un- 
interrupted procession of individual perceptions ; but 
we connect with ourselves all these perceptions which 
drop into our thought, one by one. The consciousness, 
aided by the other operations of the mind, furnishes us 
with the idea of self. 

This idea is not one of those which the child acquires 
immediately. It presupposes some effort at reflection 
and some comparison between the successive percep- 
tions of the consciousness. 

1 For a different view, see Hamilton, Metaphysics^ p. 165. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 95 

*'By a process of abstraction similar to that whereby 
the child learns to group external objects according to 
their resemblances, he comes to a knowledge of the 
inner and moral world, his own mind and character. 
His idea of self begins with the perception of his own 
organism, as the object in which he localizes his various 
feelings of pleasure and pain. Even this partial idea is 
slowly acquired. As Professor Preyer points out, the 
infant does not at first know his own organism as some- 
thing related to his feelings of pleasure and pain. 
When more than a year old, his boy bit his own arm 
just as though it had been a foreign object. This 
crude and material form of self-consciousness seems to 
correspond to the early period of life, in which the 
child speaks of himself by his proper name. 

" As the power of abstraction grows, this idea of self 
becomes fuller, and includes the representation of in- 
ternal mental states. The child's attention is absorbed 
in outward things. To attend to the facts of the inner 
life implies an effort, an active withdrawal of the. mind 
from the outer world. More particularly its develop- 
ment would be promoted by the experience of moral 
discipline and the reception of blame or praise. It is 
when the child's attention is driven inward, in an act of 
reflection on his own actions as springing from good or 
bad motives, that he wakes up to a fuller consciousness 
of self. 

''The gradual substitution for the proper name of 



96 ELEMENTS OF PSVCHOLOGY 

*me,' 'I,' 'my,' which is observable in the third year, 
probably marks the date of more distinct reflection on 
internal feelings, and consequently of a clearer idea of 
self as a conscious moral being. 

" A further process of abstraction is implied in arriv- 
ing at the idea of a penna^icnt self. The assurance of 
an enduring mental self, one and the same through all 
the changes of feeling, involves a certain development 
of the child's memory." \ 

Omitting what the idea o^ self may owe to the sense- 
perception of our body, this idea results chiefly from the 
comparison which the mind makes between its different 
states of consciousness. Notwithstanding their diver- 
sity, they all have something in common, and this com- 
mon quality is, that they are recognized as ours. By 
means of the memory, and through the process of ab- 
straction which detects in the various phenomena their 
common quality of being conscious in the same manner, 
we rise without difficulty to the idea of our own per- 
sonal existence. 

97. The Idea of Substance and the Idea of Cause. — 
The idea of a permanent self is the basis or material, so 
to speak, of the general idea of substance which has 
played such an important part in the history of philos- 
ophy. 

Substance is precisely something which remains the 
same, which endures through apparent modifications 
and perpetual changes. 

1 Sully's Ha7td-Book of Psychology, p. 211. i 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 97 

Permanence in the form of sensible objects may 
doubtless contribute towards causing us to acquire the 
idea of an invariable substance ; but it is only in our- 
selves, through the consciousness of our personal iden- 
tity, that we reach an experimental knowledge of sub- 
stance, that is, of a permanent being. ^ 

In the same way, consciousness is the source of the 
notion of cause, that is, of the relation which exists 
between an acting force and resulting effect. In the 
external world we grasp phenomena which follow one 
another in constant succession. But the relation of 
"causality" is something more than the idea of an in- 
variable succession ; it is the idea of an efficient activ- 
ity, of an effort followed by an effect ; it is within our- 
selves, in the consciousness of our activity directed 
towards an end and tending to an act which it foresees 
and produces, that we grasp for the first time, in the 
very act, an efficient cause. This notion of cause, de- 
rived at first from our own experience, we then general- 
ize and transfer to the external world. 

98. Attention. — It is not to spontaneous conscious- 
ness reduced to itself, but to consciousness prolonged 
by the memory and aided by reflective comparison, — 
in a word, it is to attention, that we owe the knowledge 
of which mention has just been made. 

1 " The idea of substance may be derived from the idea of self. Tlie Ego ap- 
pears to itself as something individual, as something identical. It may, then, 
better than external objects, furnish the intelligence with the type from wrhich is 
derived the notion of substance." (Rabier, op. cit., p. 289.) 



q8 elements of psychology 

Attention is not a special intellectual function ; it is 
a general and voluntary mode of the intelligence. It is 
the intelligence disciplined by the will. It may be de- 
fined as the self-governing mtelligence applying itself to 
ivJiat it zvills. 

By this definition we exclude from the domain of 
attention states of consciousness which resemble it ; 
for example, states in which the intelligence is absorbed 
by an impression which dominates and subjects it. A 
dominant, exclusive perception cannot be confounded 
with real attention, which is precisely the power of es- 
caping from the yoke of the sensations, and of directing 
itself voluntarily towards the objects which we have 
chosen. In a word, attention is the liberty of the mind. 

99. Attention, the Instrument of Education — Atten- 
tion is the condition of the development of all the in- 
tellectual faculties. We shall find it, active and effi- 
cient, in all the operations of the mind, assuring to 
each of them its maximum of energy. It is pre-emi- 
nently a pedagogical faculty, that is, an instrument of 
education. This is why, in our Lectures on Pedagogy} 
we have discussed at length its importance, its begin 
ning and progress, its characteristics and conditions 
It is useless to return to a theory which pertains to the 
art of education rather than to psychology proper, It 
suffices to have indicated the place of attention and to 
have given a succinct exposition of its laws. 

100. Laws of Attention. — \. Attention is doubtless 

1 See Compayre's Lectures on Pcdagoi^y, Boston, i888, ch. v. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 99 

the result of an effort of the mind and of an application 
of the will. But, no mental act being absolutely inde- 
pendent and self-existent, this effort in turn depends in 
part upon the intelligence and the sensibility. Our will 
summons to itself all the energies of the mind to no 
purpose, if the object which it proposes to our attention 
does not respond to our capacities and intellectual 
habits ; it will not succeed at all, or will succeed but 
poorly, in fixing our meditations. So, also, it is useful, 
as aiding the task of attention, that the object studied 
should be attractive to us and that our feelings should 
find their gratification in it. In other terms, everything 
in our moral life is coherent and connected ; and if the 
attention is the application of the will to the intelli- 
gence, the will, in order to apply itself, has need that the 
intelligence and the sensibility lend it their assistance. 

2. The attention has a double result : (a) To circum- 
scribe the object to be known, to define the exact limits 
of the field of our mental effort, and to reduce its 
extent. By this means it divides the difficulties in 
order the better to resolve them. 

(^) On the other hand, it concentrates the intellect- 
ual powers on a given point ; and, instead of allowing 
them to be scattered in different directions, it vigorously 
brings them to bear on a given purpose. 

These two reasons suffice to explain the results of 
attention and the happy influence which it exercises on 
intellectual labor. 



lOO ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

101. Attention, Comparison, Reflection. — Psychologi- 
cal language, a little too copious to be wholly precise, 
employs several expressions to designate different 
shades of attention. 

On the authority of some philosophers, the word 
attention should be reserved for the application of the 
mind to what is external to us. Reflection, on the con- 
trary, would be attention to what is within. We shall 
not oppose this view, although it seems preferable to 
preserve to attention its more general 'signification, and 
to attribute to it all the efforts of thought, whatever 
may be its object. On the other hand, comparison is 
also a form of attention ; it is attention directed to two 
ideas or two objects, — -as it were, a double attention, 
tending to grasp the relations of things. 

But under all its forms attention always remains the 
reflective mode of the intelligence, the real " might of 
the spirit," to use the expression of Malebranche :* and, 
as he says again in his picturesque language, " the 
prayer which we address to Truth in order that she 
may become ours." 

SUMMARY. 

42. CONSCIOUSNESS is the general form of all the in- 
tellectual facts. The ATTENTION is one of its essential 
modes, the voluntary mode. 

43. Consciousness is the knowledge which we have of all 
sensitive, intellectual, and voluntary facts. 



cunsciousnp:ss and attention ioi 

44- CONSCIOUSNESS IS A PERCEPTION. PERCEP- 
TION is immediate, primitive knowledge, always accompa- 
nied by judgment. CONCEPTION is a derived knowledge, 
v^'hich does not always give rise to a judgment. 

45. Consciousness is INWARD PERCEPTION, an 
INTERNAL SENSE. The five senses proper are the organs 
of EXTERNAL PERCEPTION. 

46. Consciousness is susceptible of a great number of 
degrees. Its power is always measured by the degree of 
strength attained by the different psychological functions. 

47. The power of consciousness depends also on effort, on 
the voluntary application which transforms SPONTANEOUS 
consciousness into REFLECTIVE consciousness. 

48. There are unobserved perceptions which suppose a 
lower degree of consciousness and are almost unconscious. 

49. Consciousness makes us acquainted, in the first place, 
with all the moral and intellectual phenomena which take 
place within us. 

50. It is consciousness, also, which connects all these 
phenomena with a principle, one and identical, the subject 
of all these phenomena, the EG-O. 

51. By this means, again, consciousness presents to us 
the primary type of SUBSTANCE and CAUSALITY. 

52. ATTENTION is the reflective or voluntary form of all 
intellectual facts. 

53. Although it is an act of the vi^ill, attention itself de- 
pends on the intelligence and the sensibility. 



I02 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER VI 

OUTWARD PERCEPTION. THE FIVE SENSES 

102. Definition of Outward Perception. — Outward per- 
ception is the intellectual function through which we 
gain an immediate knowledge of the qualities of the 
external world. 

The instruments of outward perception are the mate- 
rial organs located in different parts of the body and 
called the organs of sense. 

103. The Five Senses. — The senses are five in num- 
ber : smell, taste, hearing, sight, and touch. Some 
philosophers, and particularly the English psychologists, 
assert that it would be better to include two more, — 
the muscular sense and the general organic sense. 
*' By this expression (muscular sense) is meant the sum 
of those peculiar ' sensations ' of which we are aware 
when we voluntary exercise our muscles. The sensa- 
tions which accompany muscular action may be con- 
veniently divided into two main varieties. These are 
{a) sensations of movement or of unimpeded energy, 
and {b) sensations of strain or resistance, that is, of 
obstructed or impeded energy." ^ 

But, in reality, these muscular sensations are scarcely 

1 Sully's Teachers Hand-Book of Psychology, p. 93. 



OUTWARD TERCEPTION IO3 

perceptions ; they teach us nothing of matter, except 
that it resists us, and impedes our liberty of move- 
ment ; they consist chiefly in an impression of agreeable 
activity or of painful effort. 

This is still more true of the general organic sense, 
which Mr. Sully defines as follows : 

^' The sensations falling under the head of common 
sensibility, or of the organic sense, are marked by the 
absence of definite characters. They are vague and ill- 
defined. Their distinguishing peculiarity is that they 
have a marked pleasurable or painful aspect. Such are 
the feelings of comfort and discomfort connected with 
the processes of digestion and indigestion, and with 
injuries to the tissues. These sensations are not 
directly connected with the action of external objects, 
but arise in consequence of a certain condition of the 
part of the organism concerned. Thus they give us no 
knowledge of the external world." ^ 

We can then hold to the old classical distinction of 
the five senses, because they alone furnish us with 
definite notions as to the qualities of matter. 

104. Sensations and Perceptions. — As we have already 
seen (Chapter III.) the five senses are at the same time 
the seat of affective phenomena and of representative 
phenomena, — of sensations and perceptions. 

At first, it is the affective element which dominates ; 
it is pleasure or pain which constitutes the *' whole " of 

1 Sully's Teacher's Hand-Book of Psychology, p. S7. 



T04 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

sensation. But little by little the representative ele- 
ment disengages itself, and perception appears. This 
is what Hamilton ^ expressed by saying : '' Knowledge 
and feeling, — perception and sensation, though always 
co-existent, are always in the inverse ratio of each 
other." 

Doubtless, for the child the sensations of sight are 
intense pleasures which vividly excite his sensibility, 
but which bring him only vague representations of the 
external world. On the contrary, in the mature man, 
it is only exceptionally that the perceptions of sight are 
accompanied by pleasure or by pain, 

105. The Subjective and the Objective. — This is the 
proper place to indicate an essential distinction of 
which philosophers make a great use, — between the 
subjective and the objective. A sensation is merely sub- 
jective ; in other terms, it is an inward phenomenon 
which is related only to the feeling subject. A percep- 
tion, on the contrary, is objective, it represents to us 
an object distinct from the subject. 

106. Hierarchy of the Five Senses. — The five senses 
are far from being equally important with respect to 
perceptions and the objective representations of which 
they are the source. 

In the impressions of taste and smell, pains and 
pleasures dominate ; servants of the sensibility, these 
two senses are but indifferent instruments of the intel- 

1 Hamilton, A'ctaphysics, p. 336. 



OUTWARD PERCEPTION 



105 



ligence. Hearing, sight, and touch, on the contrary, 
furnish us with perceptions which are usually indiffer- 
ent, that is, divorced from all emotion, agreeable or dis- 
agreeable, but which constitute real intellectual knowl- 
edge. 

107. Micr omegas* and the Plurality of the Senses. — 
The five senses reveal to us very many of the properties 
of matter ; but it is evident that they do not reveal to 
us all of them ; and that an additional sense, if it ex- 
isted, would give us the knowledge of new qualities. 
In one of his most ingenious romances, Voltaire imag- 
ines a giant, who, endowed with more senses than man 
has, distinguishes in matter a multitude of properties 
which are unknown to us. 

" How many senses do the men of your globe have .? 
asks the inhabitant of Sirius of the inhabitant of 
Saturn. We have sixty-two, says the Saturnian, and 
every day we complain of the small number. I can 
well believe it, says Micromegas, for in our globe we 
have nearly a thousand senses, and we ever feel a vague 
longing which suggests to us that there are beings 
much more perfect than we are. How many different 
properties do you count in the matter of your world ?■ 
— If you speak of those properties without which we 
believe this globe could not remain as it is, we count 
three hundred, extension, impenetrability, mobility, 
divisibility, and the rest." ^ 

108. Analysis of Sense Perception. — Though exter- 

i Micromegas, Hisioirc philosophiqiic. 



I06 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

nal perception furnishes an immediate knowledge of 
material reality, it is nevertheless a complex operation 
involving many others. It first supposes the existence 
of an external phenomenon, of a physical object or a 
material quality, which is the cause of the perception. 
It then necessitates a series of physiological phenom- 
ena which take place : (i) in the external organ placed 
on the surface of the body where the impression is pro- 
duced ; (2) in the special nerves, — the optic nerves for 
seeing, the acoustic nerves for hearing, etc., which 
transmit to the nerve centre the impression received 
from without ; (3) in the brain, where, following the 
transmitted impression, the perception takes place. 

Perception is thus a psychological phenomenon which 
involves, as antecedents, physical and physiological 
phenomena. 

109. A General Description of the Apparatus of Sen- 
sation. — Let us take- the sense of sight, as an example. 
In darkness we see nothing, nor do we see anything 
more in a vacuum. In order that perception of sight 
may take place, light must illumine us and also the 
object placed before us. In the second place, there 
must be an organ of vision and it must be sound. The 
eye is like a window opened to the external world. If 
the window is closed or in any way obstructed, the light 
does not penetrate the house, or penetrates it imper- 
fectly. But this is not all. If the optic nerve placed 
behind the retina which carpets the back of the eye is 



OUTWARD PERCEPTION 10/ 

cut or destroyed, the luminous ray will strike the eye 
to no purpose. Not having been transmitted to the 
brain, it will not be perceived. 

Without entering into details which fall within the 
province of physiology, we conclude that the organs of 
sense are a special apparatus giving rise to particular 
perceptions. The sense of touch alone is distributed 
over the whole surface of the body, although its prin- 
cipal seat is in the hand. 

110. Perceptions, Natural and Acquired. — There is an 
essential distinction which should be understood from 
the very first. Among the perceptions, some result 
immediately from the natural play of each sense ; these 
are natural perceptions. Others suppose a certain edu- 
cation of the senses and their mutual co-operation ; 
these are acquired perceptions. Thus, we shall presently 
see that color is a natural perception of sight, and the 
distance of objects an acquired perception. 

111. Perceptions, Passive and Active. — Another im- 
portant distinction is that between spontaneous or 
passive perceptions, and perceptions that are voluntary 
or active. The attention plays an important part in 
external perception as in other functions of the mind. 
It is one thing to observe, to listen, to feel, to discrim- 
inate by taste and smell ; and another to see, to hear, 
to touch, and simply to taste and smell. Perception 
attains its maximum of power only when it is directed 
by the attention. 



I08 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Each of our senses procures for us special percep- 
tions, absolutely irreducible to any others. Let us 
study these specific perceptions in order. 

112. Perceptions of Smell and Taste. — The special 
perceptions of smell and taste are odors and savors. 

Smell and taste are two inferior senses which bring 
us more sensations than perceptions, to which we owe 
more pleasures than ideas. Odors and savors, as we 
have said, are impressions, agreeable or disagreeable, 
according to circumstances, rather than intellectual 
phenomena, knowledges, or representative facts. 

Nevertheless, odors and savors, being distinct quali- 
ties of matter, may aid us in recognizing bodies. 
Chemists, in their analyses and classifications, use the 
characteristic odors of different substances in order to 
distinguish them one from another. And so the wine- 
taster learns to distinguish the vintage of a wine by its 
particular taste. Each one of us has need of the sense 
of taste in order to distinguish foods, and to avoid de- 
ception in them. 

113. Perceptions of Hearing. — The special perception 
of hearing is sound and its different qualities. 

The different characteristics of sound may be classed 
as follows : (i) quality, the sound is sweet or harsh ; 
(2) intensity, the sound is strong or weak ; (3) volume, 
which depends on the extent of the sonorous mass ; (4) 
pitch, the sound is shrill or grave ; (5) timbre, which 
comes from the difference in voices or instruments. 



OUTWARD PERCErTION I09 

Hearing is a social sense, for it is through it that we 
perceive the language of our fellows, and language is 
one of the foundations of society. 

It is a musical sense, for it is through the perception 
of differences in the pitch of sounds that we are sensi- 
ble of the charm of music. 

Besides, through education and the co-operation of 
other senses, hearing acquires the perception of dis- 
tance and the direction of sounds. Accustomed as we 
are by experience to associate sounds with the presence 
of a given object, we come to judge from the sound 
alone, from its nature and intensity, whether the object 
which produces it is far away or near at hand. A feeble 
sound is a sign that the object is remote, and vice 
versa. 

114. Perceptions of Sight. — The proper and natural 
perception of sight is color, but color being always 
united with surface, surface is also the immediate 
object of the perception of sight. 

It must be added, it is true, that the eyes never 
really perceive extension unless they can move. We 
move them to the right and left and thus extend the 
field of vision. (See Compayre's Lectures 011 Peda- 
gogy) But if the sight naturally perceives extension 
in its two primary dimensions, length and breadth ; and 
if, through the differences of color which mark and 
limit it, it immediately grasps the form of objects ; the 
same thing is not true in respect of the third dimension 



no ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of bodies, depth or thickness, and, consequently, with 
respect to the distance of objects. 

Depth and distance are not natural data, but are ac- 
quired perceptions of sight. 

To prove this, it suffices to recollect that the child is 
for a long time very awkward in his appreciation of dis- 
tances ; he stretches out his hand to grasp objects 
which are wholly beyond his reach. 

Moreover, numerous experiments made on persons 
blind from birth allow no doubt on this question. 

115. Cheselden's Experiment. — Cheselden,^ a surgeon 
of the eighteenth century, having cured a blind man of 
cataract, ascertained that the patient, at the moment 
when he recovered his sight, had no perception of dis- 
tance or of solidity ; the objects which he saw presented 
themselves to him on the same plane, glued, so to speak, 
to the same surface ; they touched his eyes. He con- 
founded a fiat disk with a globe, and touch alone taught 
him to recognize the difference between a plane surface 
and solid bodies. 

This experiment has often been repeated, and always 
with the same results.^ 

116. Perception of Solidity. — It follows that the per- 
ception of depth and distance is due to a co-operation 
of eye and hand, and that it supposes even the inter- 
vention of reasoning and of a rapid induction. Sight 
allows us to perceive different degrees of light, degra- 
dations and shadows. Touch, on the other hand, 

1 See Taine, Oii Intelligence, vol. i. 



OUTWARD PERCEPTION HI 

teaches us, through the resistance which bodies offer 
to it, the difference between a plane surface over which 
our figures slide, and a solid body which our hand 
passes around. We very soon learn to associate these 
two sorts of perceptions and to note what play of light 
and shade corresponds to a simple surface, and what to 
a solid body ; so that by the sight of an object, accord- 
ing as it is illuminated one way or another, we judge of 
its three dimensions. 

And so for distance. Experience has taught us that 
objects appear smaller to us in proportion as they are. 
more remote, and larger as they are nearer us ; so that 
we judge from their apparent size of the distance which 
separates them from us. The acquired perceptions of a 
sense are, then, at bottom, natural perceptions inter- 
preted by the reason through experience and the aid of 
the other senses. 

The natural perceptions of the senses are infallible as 
long as the senses remain in their normal state ; but 
the acquired perceptions, being the result of a rational 
interpretation of natural perceptions, are subject to 
error. 

We are often deceived in our estimate of the thick- 
ness and distance of objects. A false window, simply 
represented upon a wall, gives us the illusion of a real 
window. The painter who skilfully arranges colors, 
lights, and shades on his canvas, makes us believe in 
the existence of several planes on the same surface. 



112 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGV 

All the illusions of perspective are based on the psycho- 
logical fact that the perception of depth and distance 
is an acquired perception. 

117. Perceptions of Touch. — The perceptions of touch 
are quite numerous : they are, first the rough and the 
smooth, then the hot and the cold, and lastly and 
chiefly, resistance and solidity. 

Touch, it has been said, is the true sense of exterior- 
ity ; that which reveals to us, without possible dispute, 
the existence of something exterior which resists our 
pressure and which, consequently, is distinct from us. 

118. Laura Bridgman. — Touch has this special char- 
acteristic, that being distributed over the whole surface 
of the body, it is never completely abolished. 

There are mutes and persons blind from birth or by 
accident, but there is no living creature deprived of the 
sense of touch ; and through this sense there have been 
exceptional cases, like that of Laura Bridgman,* of 
persons deprived of sight and hearing, who have been 
able to read and write, and through signs to hold com- 
munication with other persons. Laura Bridgman, a 
deaf mute and blind from birth, was able to sew and 
embroider ; she distinguished the color of the silk or 
cotton which she used ; she wrote verse ; and through 
a remarkable substitution of the sense of touch, culti- 
vated and prodigiously developed, for the senses which 
she lacked, she finally became an intelligent, well-in- 
formed, and relatively happy person. 



OUTWARD PERCEPTION I13 

119. Errors of the Senses. — Much has been said of 
the errors of the senses. Those of vision have often 
been cited, as the illusion of the stick which seems 
broken when one end is plunged in water, or of the 
square tower which at a distance seems round. In 
truth, these errors are to be attributed, not to the 
senses themselves, but to the reason, which wrongly 
interprets the appearances of sense, or which, withdraw- 
ing a sense from the limits of its special competence, 
demands of it information which only another sense can 
supply. The appearances of sense are always what they 
ought to be. For example, by the laws of refraction of 
light, the physicist explains the phenomenon of the 
stick which seems broken. But by reason of the habit 
which we have formed of associating a judgment as to the 
real conditions of bodies with the colored appearances 
of these same bodies, we are the dupes, in certain cases, 
of these same appearances ; we are deceived when, for 
one reason or another, they do not coincide with the 
reality. 

120. Hallucination. — In reality, the sole error of the 
senses is hallucination. In this case we believe we see 
and hear, when in reality there is no visible object, no 
sonorous body, within the reach of these senses. Hal- 
lucination is a false, a purely subjective perception, 
which corresponds to no objective reality. 

And it is easy, moreover, to explain this error, or rather 
this disease of the senses. In the normal state, percep- 



tt4 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGV 

tion is the consequence of a series of nervous phenomena 
determined by the external impression of a real object. 
But in certain abnormal states, the nervous excitation 
may be the result of the imagination, an organic dis- 
order. The optic nerve then vibrates as if it were 
affected by a luminous object ; and the mind projects 
outwardly, as though it corresponded to a reality, the 
image which is transmitted to it, but which is only a 
phantom. 

121. Relativity of Sense-Knowledge. — If there is one 
truth that is well established in philosophy, it is 
that sense-knowledge is relative ; it is derived from the 
relation of two terms, the exterior object and the organi- 
zation of our senses. Modify the sensitive apparatus, 
and the perception will vary. It is in this way that the 
eye, when affected by jaundice, sees everything in 
yellow ; and that through the infirmity called " Dalton- 
ism," * the eye is incapable of distinguishing red. 

That which is too heavy for the frail hand of a child 
is not so for the robust hand of a grown man. The 
senses do not give us absolute knowledge. ^ What 
seems small to the natural eye seems large when seen 
with the microscope. 

On the other hand, it is very evident that sense-per- 

■•• According to certain philosophers, it is necessary to distinguish the prhnary 
qualities of matter, such as extension, divisibihty, form, etc.; and secondary 
qualities, such as taste, color, smell, etc. The first alone are absolute knowledges. 
Modern philosophers have no difficulty in showing that extension itself is a rela- 
tive knowledge, for it varies with the visual organ. 



OUTWARD PERCEPTION II5 

ceptioiis do not resemble the material phenomena which 
produce them. They are signs which in their own way 
translate the thing signified. 

Outside of ourselves, sound, as we know, is but a 
movement of matter ; and light is also but a movement. 
We should be well convinced of this truth, that if there 
were no ear there would be no sounds ; and if there 
were no eyes there would no longer be light in nature. 
Matter, so to speak, is, in itself, an inaccessible and 
illegible text which we know only through a translation. 

122. Idealism. — From the relativity of sense-knowl- 
edge, certain philosophers have drawn the extreme and 
unwarrantable conclusion that the external world is an 
illusion, a vain appearance. Berkeley* maintained that 
matter does not exist, and that all reality is reducible 
to our states of consciousness. This is the doctrine 
called idealism.* 

123. Reality of the External World. — It must be said 
in reply to Berkeley, that if the senses do not give us 
an adequate knowledge of matter, if they do not teach 
us what the external world is in itself, they do, at least, 
reveal to us that there is something outside of ourselves, 
and that there is an external world. 

If there were only the perceptions of hearing, smell, 
and taste, they might be considered, up to a certain 
point, as purely subjective impressions which, through 
illusion, we project outwardly by referring them to an 
imaginary substance. 



Il6 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

But how can we persist in this opinion in the pres- 
ence of the perception of visual extension, so radically 
opposed to our states of unextended consciousness, and 
especially in the presence of tactile impressions and of 
the resistance opposed to touch by that unknown some- 
thing which is outside of ourselves ? If Descartes 
could say : '' I think, therefore I am ; " it is permissible 
to add, by an analogous formula : " I feel, I touch some- 
thing which resists, I perceive something extended ; 
therefore there is something outside of myself." 

Let us add, moreover, that belief in the external 
world, or the idea of matter distinct from ourselves, is 
not an immediate perception of the senses, the result of 
a direct experience ; but is a derived conception which 
is organized in the mind little by little. The senses 
reveal to us immediately only particular qualities, and 
it is only through the association and co-ordination of 
their different impressions, united insensibly into one 
single and unique picture, that we come to objectify* 
or to project outwardly, and to consider as a distinct 
substance, the cause of all these sense-perceptions. 

SUMMARY. 

54. OUTWARD PERCEPTION is the intellectual func- 
tion by which we take immediate knowledge of the external 
world. 

55. The organs of outward perception are the five senses : 
SMELL, TASTE, HEARING, SEEING and TOUCH. Some 



OUTWARD PERCEPTION II7 

psychologists also distinguish the muscular sense and the 
general organic sense. 

56. THE SENSATIONS are affective phenomena of 
pleasure or pain ; THE PERCEPTIONS are representative 
phenomena. It may be said, farther, that sensation is 
SUBJECTIVE, and perception OBJECTIVE. 

57. The senses may be classed in the following order 
with respect to the services which they render the intelli- 
gence : I, seeing ; 2, hearing ; 3, touch ; 4, smell ; 5, taste. 

58. Outward perception is a psychological phenomenon, 
which supposes a PHYSICAL PHENOMENON, namely, the 
object of perception ; and certain PHYSIOLOGICAL CON- 
DITIONS, as the outward organ of the senses, the nerves, 
and the brain. 

59. Each of the senses furnishes us with special percep- 
tions, some of them NATURAL and others ACQUIRED, 
some PASSIVE and others ACTIVE. 

60. The proper perceptions of SMELL and TASTE are 
ODORS and SAVORS. 

61. The proper perceptions of HEARING are sound and 
its different qualities. The ear perceives the direction and 
distance of sounds only through the aid of experience 
and reasoning. 

62. The natural perceptions of SIGHT are COLOR and 
EXTENT of surface. The perception of DISTANCE and 
SOLIDITY is an ACQUIRED PERCEPTION of sight. 

63. The principal perception of TOUCH is SOLIDITY 
or RESISTANCE. 



Il8 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

64. The senses are infallible when they do not go out of 
their proper domain. 

65. HALLUCINATION is a false perception. 

66. Sense-knowledge is relative ; but if it does not make 
us know matter in itself, it nevertheless reveals to us in a 
CERTAIN MANNER the existence of matter. 



THE PHENOMENA OF MEMORY I 19 



CHAPTER VII 

ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION OF THE PHENOMENA 
OF MEMORY 

124. Memory the Function of Conservation. — The in- 
tellectual faculties of which we have been speaking, are 
functions of acquisition. Consciousness reveals to us 
immediately the world within ; and the senses, the 
world without. But these gifts of consciousness would 
be but a useless succession of transient and perishable 
phenomena, an accumulation of the facts of consciousness 
disappearing as soon as they had appeared, if they had 
not been preserved by the memory. Without the mem- 
ory the mind would be like the cask of the Danaides,* 
emptying itself while being filled. In truth, the mind 
would not exist ; for the intelligence supposes not only 
the incessant and ever-continued acquisition of new 
knowledge ; but in order to exist, it must have the 
power to hold what it acquires, and always to have at 
its disposal the elementary knowledge which is the 
material of subsequent knowledge.^ 

Let us add that the memory preserves and renews, 

1 Some psychologists, notably F. Marion, place the study of the functions of 
conservation after the study of the functions of elaboration. We believe that it is 
more logical, when we have examined the primitive faculties of perception, to pass 
at once to the memory, which is the condition of the subsequent activity of the 
mind. 



I20 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

not only the knowledge that has been acquired by the 
senses and the consciousness, but also the knowledge 
derived from the faculties of elaboration. 

125. Memory and Consciousness. — Under whatever 
form the memory presents itself, the facts which ought 
to be assigned to it are always recollections or impres- 
sions remaining in the memory ; and recollections are 
derived, or secondary, states of consciousness, as distin- 
guished from perceptions, which constitute the primi- 
tive facts of the mind. 

There is nothing, there can be nothing, in the mem- 
ory, which has not previously been in the consciousness. 

Conversely, whatever has been, at a given moment, a 
fact of consciousness, may become, at a subsequent 
moment, a fact of memory. 

We recall sounds, colors and forms, savors and odors, 
and tactile impressions ; and we also recall the emo- 
tions, agreeable or disagreeable, which have traversed 
our sensibility. *' Properly speaking," says Royer-Col- 
lard,* '' we recollect only the operations and different 
states of our mind, because we recollect nothing that 
has not been the immediate intuition of our conscious- 
ness. This assertion seems to contradict common 
sense, according to which we do not hesitate to say, 
/ remember stick a person ; but the contradiction is only 
apparent. / remember such a person means, / remember 
to have seen such a person!' ^ 

1 Fragments de Roycr-Collard, p. 357. 



THE PHENOMENA OF MEMORY 121 

But if the reviving power of the memory cannot in 
any case go beyond the compass of the acquisitions of 
consciousness, the converse is far from being absolutely 
true, that every primitive state of consciousness remains 
fixed in the memory. By the side of memory there is 
forgetfulness ; not only the temporary forgetfulness 
into which all our knowledge falls the moment we no 
longer think of it ; but also the final forgetfulness to 
which are condemned a multitude of the states of con- 
sciousness which will no more reappear, either because 
the occasion favorable for their reappearance will not 
occur, or because the powers of the memory are unable 
to retain all that has successively passed before our 
consciousness. 

In fact, then, memory is but a partial restoration of 
thoughts previously acquired. 

126. Definition of Memory. — For the present, mem- 
ory may be defined as the intellectual fiuirtion which 
preserves and irnews inner states of consciousness. It 
does not comprise merely the facts of actual remem- 
brance, but also the latent disposition that makes it 
possible for these remembrances to reappear at some 
future time. 

It is then an inexact definition of memory to say with 
Reid,* that it is ''the immediate knowledge of the 
past." First, "immediate knowledge" is inexact, since 
memory is a derived fact, subsequent to an original 
perception. Next, and chiefly, memory is not merely 



122 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the intermittent succession of conscious and actual 
recollections ; but it is also the possibility of recollect- 
ing, a possibility that may never be realized. It is the 
sum of the aptitudes which we acquire to represent to 
ourselves a second time that which has pnce been 
present to our minds. 

127. Importance of the Memory. — It is useless to in- 
sist on a truth so elementary as the importance of the 
memory. Without the memory, no intellectual opera- 
tion is possible. When the perceptions have lasted a 
certain length of time, it is assumed that at the momer^ 
when they cease we have not forgotten the first impres- 
sions which they gave us at the outset. Reasoning, 
which always comprises a series of judgments, requires 
that the mind, when it reaches the conclusion, should 
recall the premises on which it is founded. And if, 
under its humbler form and in its ordinary proportions, 
memory is one of the necessary conditions of all the 
operations of the mind, it becomes, when it is particu- 
larly strong and well developed, one of the sources of 
the power and wealth of the intellect ; for it is the 
memory which enriches and supplies it more or less 
with its stores. 

128. Analysis of the Facts of Memory. — There are 
several periods to distinguish in the phenomena of 
memory. At first, memory is but the prolongation in 
consciousness of a received impression which continues, 
and, so to speak, resounds for a little after the instant 



THE PHENOMENA OF MEMORY 



123 



when it was produced. Thus, for a long time after it 
has tolled, we continue to hear the bell which strikes 
our ears. We have opened our eyes to view a land- 
scape ; we close them ; and we still see with our mind's 
eye the different objects which we have perceived. In 
this case memory is nothing but a prolonged conscious- 
ness ; no interval separates the original perception and 
the recollection which we preserve of it. In most cases, 
on the contrary, recollection is preceded by forgetful- 
ness. During our lives we have perceived a multitude 
of objects ; we have acquired a mass of knowledge. 
All this knowledge, all these perceptions, remain dor- 
mant, so to speak, in our intelligence ; but we have the 
faculty of awakening them, and it is precisely in this 
that memory consists. True memory is the resurrec- 
tion or reappearance in the consciousness of knowledge 
for a time forgotten, but which revives after a longer or 
shorter period of unconsciousness and forgetfulness. 

129. Reminiscence and Recognition. — But this reap- 
pearance or restoration of knowledge does not always 
take place in the same manner ; and there is a distinc- 
tion to be made between refjiiniscence, which is but an 
incomplete or half recollection, and recognition, which 
is the integral form of the memory. It often happens 
that a representation reappears in our mind without our 
being able to say when and how it appeared there for 
the first time, and even without our knowing that 
it is the renewal of an earlier state of consciousness. 



124 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

In this case the phenomenon of memory is a simple 
reminiscence. But still oftener the representations of 
the memory are, as Locke* says, accompanied by an 
additional perception indicating that they are not new, 
that they have already been experienced ; this is what 
is ordinarily called recognition. In fact, true memory 
consists in recognizing, or replacing in the past, the 
representation which returns to our mind. Recollection 
will be the clearer and the more definite as we are the 
better able to refer it, in time and space, to the place 
and the moment when it was engraven in our memory. 

130. Explanation of Memory. — Philosophers have 
multiplied their theories to explain the phenomena of 
memory ; but perhaps it must be acknowledged that 
these explanations do not lead to a clear solution, and 
that the memory is an irreducible fact which defies 
analysis. 

According to certain philosophers, recollections 
remain in the mind as precious objects remain in 
the casket or dark drawer where they have been 
shut up, till the day when they have been restored 
to the light. For acquired knowledge there is a sort of 
unconscious survival. The mind, according to Plato, is 
a dove-cote full of birds that are waiting till some one 
comes to take them and restore them to the broad day- 
light. In other terms, our conscious perceptions sub- 
sist in the state of insensible and unconscious thought. 

This hypothesis cannot be admitted ; for we cannot 



THE PHENOMENA OF MEMORY I 25 

conceive of unconscious thoughts. There is an abso- 
hite contradiction in conceiving a thought which is not 
thought. Acquired knowledge, the moment it is no 
longer present to the mind, evidently no longer exists 
in the state of knowledge. 

The essence of psychological facts is that they are 
conscious ; suppress consciousness and they will cease 
to exist. 

131. Physiological Explanation. — A more plausible 
theory for explaining the latent persistence and inter- 
mittent reappearance of recollections, assumes that 
there subsist in the brain organic traces or material 
imprints corresponding to each item of acquired knowl- 
edge. The old comparison, which likened the memory 
to a treasury or a storehouse, is, by this theory, amply 
justified. The brain contains, in the state of real traces 
or of infinitely small characters, all the recollections 
which throng the memory. It is in this sense that 
Descartes compared the mind, with respect to its power 
of recollection, to a sheet of paper, or to a piece of can- 
vas, which, once bent in a certain way, indefinitely pre- 
serves the fold which has been given it, and which it 
tends to take again. 

It may be objected, it is true, that the recollections 
which the mind holds in store are innumerable, and that 
it is difficult to conceive the material possibility of 
lodging in the brain the enormous quantity of distinct 
and individual traces which this accumulation of dor- 



•126 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

mant knowledge supposes. Philosophers reply to this 
objection by saying that the complexity of nervous 
matter is infinite ; that the brain contains six hundred 
millions of cells and several thousand millions of 
fibres. 

But this physiological explanation does not solve all 
the difficulties in the case. We are quite willing to 
admit that the memory has its conditions in the brain ; 
but we are at a loss to understand how these material 
traces imprinted in the nervous substance, just as 
letters are stamped on a sheet of white paper, do not 
always remain present to consciousness ; but that at 
one time they remain concealed, ignored by the mind 
which possesses them, while at another they revive and 
reappear under the eye of consciousness. 

132. Memory is a Habit. — Here the psychologists 
interpose, who define memory as an mtcllcctiLal habit, a 
permanent disposition of the mind to think anew what 
it has already thought. 

But this apparent explanation does not suffice, for it 
consists only in substituting one word for another. To 
declare that memory is a habit is to say that it is an 
acquired power, an aptitude contracted by the mind ; it 
is to admit, in other terms, that it is one of those facul- 
ties whose essence is unknown, which, like the con- 
sciousness or like the reason, constitute the mysterious 
and indefinable nature of the mind. 

133. Qualities of a Good Memory. — The qualities of 



THE PHENOMENA OF MEMORY 12/ 

a good memory constitute a pedagogical rather than a 
psychological question. We shall content ourselves 
with the remark that a good memory is prompt in 
receiving, tenacious in holding, and prompt in recalling 
its souvenirs. 

134. Conditions of the Development of the Memory. — 
As the facts of memory are not primitive facts, we can 
lay down the conditions on which their degree and 
strength depend. 

With respect to promptness in receiving, and fidelity 
in retaining, the conditions are nearly the same. 

They consist, in the first place, in the natural inten- 
sity or vivacity of the origii^al impression ; and this 
vivacity itself comes either from the native vigor of the 
intelligence and the sensibility, or from the novelty or 
the importance of the object which is presented to the 
mind. Every one knows by experience that impres- 
sions are more or less strong, according as the individ- 
ual is more or less gifted with respect to his intellectual 
and sensitive faculties, and also according as the out- 
ward appearance, or the moral event which is the object 
of his consciousness, is more or less considerable and 
important. 

They consist, in the second place, in the degree of 
attention which we give the individual impressions 
which are the starting-point of recollections. The more 
attentive we are, the more quickly and the longer we 
retain what we wish to learn. 



128 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

They consist, in the third place, in repetition. Mem- 
ory, being a habit, has need, like all the habits, of 
re-enforcing itself by a frequent renewal of the thoughts 
which it ought to retain. Usually one single impres- 
sion does not suffice to fix the recollection. 

135. Physiological Conditions. — Memory does not 
depend alone on psychological conditions. Vigor of 
health and vitality of organism favor its development. 
Memory is stronger in the young man than in the old 
man, not only because the over-accumulation of ideas 
in the mind of the old man obstructs the acquisition of 
new recollections, but because his brain is wearied and 
his vitality enfeebled. It has often been observed that 
an old man who recalls with exactness the long-ago 
events of his youth, forgets the events of the day or of 
the previous evening. But it is not merely with age 
that the memory decreases in power. At every period 
of life it can be shown that memory is stronger at 
certain hours of the day, as on awakening, or after a 
meal, when the bodily powers have been renewed and 
refreshed by repose or by food. 

136. Laws of the Recall of Recollections. — Vivacity 
of impressions, attention, and repetition — the physio- 
logical conditions which exercise great influence on the 
first two qualities of memory — have just as evident an 
effect on the third, that is, promptness in recalling. It 
is evident that the recollections that have been acquired 
with facility, which are durable and tenacious, have 



THE PHENOMENA OF MEMORY 1 29 

contracted, by virtue of this fact, a tendency, in some 
sort spontaneous, to reappear in consciousness. 

But we must push our analysis still farther. Among 
so many recollections buried in the depths of our mem- 
ory, which slumber there awaiting the hour of awaken- 
ing, why do some of them rise to the surface and others 
not ? Why, at a given moment, does one recollection 
reappear and not another ? 

It is at this point that there intervenes the association 
of ideas, the laws of which we shall set forth farther on 
(see chapter VIII. ). The reason why any given state of 
consciousness, perception, emotion, sensation, or recol- 
lection, is succeeded by another recollection, precisely 
this one and not another, is that there is a bond or rela- 
tion between the antecedent state of consciousness and 
the recollection which follows it. 

" I am thinking of rain. Why } Because I have seen 
the sky overcast with clouds. I am thinking of thun- 
der. Why ? Because I have seen it lighten. I am 
thinking of Napoleon I. Why ? Because a moment 
ago I was thinking of Caesar or Alexander. In all 
these cases the idea at which I arrived was evidently 
determined by an antecedent idea. Had the antecedent 
idea been different, the subsequent idea would also have 
been different. If, for example, instead of thinking of 
Alexander, I had thought of Socrates, it is infinitely 
probable that a moment after I would not have thought 
of Napoleon." ^ 

1 Rabier, o/>. cit. p. 183. 



130 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Recollections, then, are provoked or suggested 
mechanically, so to speak, by the bonds which connect 
them with the different states of consciousness which 
precede them. The association of ideas is the grand 
law of the recall of recollections. 

137. Voluntary Memory. — Nevertheless, the will and 
the effort of attention also play a part in the recall of 
recollections. We all know by experience, that with a 
little reflection we may recover a recollection which 
escaped us at first, but which we desire to recall. But 
even in this reflective government of the memory, we 
need to obey the law of the association of ideas, and 
we cannot release ourselves from the natural mechanism 
of the restoration of our recollections. Hence arise 
those gropings which usually accompany a search for a 
recollection which has for a long time been blotted 
from our mind. After a lapse of two years, I am pass- 
ing by a school called the Seminary of Polignaii. This 
name has escaped from my memory and I try to recover 
it. At first I find nothing ; but presently analogous 
names, Pompigna7t, Pej'pignan, occur to my memory. 
I reject them, for with the momentary forgetfulness of 
the true name, there is connected a vague judgment 
which obliges me to reject the false names, and so, by 
painful effort and slow degrees, I succeed in reconstruct- 
ing the exact recollection. And so I have forgotten the 
name of a person called Rouqncttc, but I have preserved 
in my mind the idea that his name is almost like that 



thp: phenomena of memory 



13 



of an animal, a roquet ; this association of ideas enables 
me to recover the name I am looking for. So that in 
the very effort of my will which seeks and finds the 
recollection it has need of, the association of ideas in- 
tervenes as an indispensable element in the success of 
my pursuit. 

138. Ideas which we o"we to the Memory. — Memory 
is not simply the power of recovering our recollections 
one by one. From the mass of these recollections, 
through the reflective effort of the mind, there result 
new ideas which are in some sort real acquisitions of 
the memory. Such, for example, is the idea of sub- 
stance^ which we have already attributed to conscious- 
ness, but the conception of which is possible only 
because the memory gives continuity to consciousness ; 
the idea of personal identity ; the idea of self, which in 
reality is but another form of the idea of substance ; 
and finally, the idea of diwation, which in turn is but a 
different translation of the fundamental notion of some- 
thing which remains the same throughout a succession 
of changing phenomena. 

139. Diseases of the Memory. — The memory, like 
other human functions, is subject to diseases or dis- 
orders which injure and weaken it, or which may alto- 
gether destroy it. Sometimes the memory of words is 
lost, and this disease is called aphasia;^ it is a physical 
state which often allows ideas and feelings to continue 
while forbidding their expression. It may also happen 



132 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

that the memory becomes double ; in the same individ- 
ual two existences succeed each other, — two states of 
consciousness, two Egos. In one period, the invalid 
recalls but one series of recollections, and these he for- 
gets in the other period, with which other recollections 
are connected. 

But in its normal state, notwithstanding the multipli- 
city of individual notions which it contains, and its 
various species, as the memory of words, of places, of 
dates, of proper names, etc., the memory is one ; and 
gives proof of the unity and identity of the mind, with- 
out which it would not exist, and which, on the other 
hand, we would not know without it. 

SUMMARY. 

67. MEMORY is a function of conservation ; it preserves 
and renews in consciousness the knowledge acquired through 
the other functions of the mind. 

68. Memory always supposes a prior consciousness. We 
recollect only because we have been previously conscious. 
RECOLLECTIONS are secondary or derived facts. 

69. The memory which is the continuation or uninter- 
rupted prolongation of consciousness, must be distinguished 
from the memory which is preceded by forgetfulness. 

70. Recollection is often incomplete, and is then called 
REMINISCENCE, while complete recollection is called 
RECOGNITION. 



THE PHENOMENA OF MEMORY I 33 

71. The spiritualist philosophers have tried to explain 
memory by the latent and unconscious existence of recollec- 
tions ; and the physiologists, by the existence of certain 
material traces which subsist in the brain. 

72. The best explanation, though still insufficient, is that 
which defines memory as an INTELLECTUAL HABIT. 

73. The psychological conditions for the development of 
the memory are : 

1. The Vivacity of the Original Impressions. 

2. Attention. 

3. Repetition. 

74. Memory also supposes physiological conditions, as 
age, health, etc. 

75. The recall of recollections depends in great part 
on the ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. A recollection is sug- 
gested through the relation which connects it with the state 
of consciousness which has preceded it in the mind. 

76. It is through the memory that the mind is able to 
form the ideas of PERSONAL IDENTITY and DURATION. 



134 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 

140. The Association of Ideas. — Properly speaking, 
the association of ideas is not a special function of the 
mind ; it is one of its essential laws. In the succession 
of its thoughts, and, in general, of all its states of con- 
sciousness, the mind obeys the law of association. In 
reality, the ordinary expression, " association of ideas," 
is improper. It would be better to say, *' the associa- 
tion or suggestion of states of consciousness ; " for 
feelings suggest one another as well as ideas. 

141. In Reverie. — Let US try to comprehend what 
takes place in our consciousness when we abandon our 
thought to itself, when we allow it to follow the course 
of its reveries freely. One after another a great num- 
ber of different representations occupy our mind, A 
moment ago we were thinking of the education of our 
children, and now, without apparent transition, we are 
thinking of our own duties, or the books we have in 
preparation ; in an instant, perhaps, we shall be think- 
ing of our fellow-citizens. 

Recollections, imaginations, general conceptions, all 
crowd upon us in apparent disorder in a sort of intellect- 
ual swarm. And yet, if we ascend the series of our 



THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 1 35 

thoughts, we shall perceive without difficulty that, like 
the different links of the same chain, they are all held 
together by a real, though imperceptible, thread. Our 
mind passes by invisible bridges from one idea to another. 
Notwithstanding the superficial confusion of our rev- 
eries, there is never any break of continuity in them. 
Some secret nexus always connects the thought which 
follows with the thought that precedes. 

142. In Reflection. — It is not merely when the 
thought is unbridled, so to speak, that it obeys the law, 
in some sense mechanical and fatal, of the association of 
ideas ; but even when we reflect, when we are the mas- 
ters of our thought, we are still directed by the law of 
association. 

The recollections which we call up, and the new 
conceptions which we imagine, respond to our call and 
present themselves to our mind, only by reason of the 
bond which unites them to the thought which has served 
as the starting-point for our reflection. Observe your- 
selves while you are composing a narrative or a disserta- 
tion on a given subject. The ideas and images which you 
would group in order to make of them the plot of your 
composition, will all be connected one to another by some 
thread of relation. Even the most original thoughts 
which have charmed you by their novelty, as well as 
the thoughts which are apparently the most fortuitous, 
have been suggested to you by some relation which 
associates them with one of your previous thoughts. 



136 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

143. Classical Examples. — Philosophers have for a 
long time observed the fact of the association of ideas. 

Hobbes* relates that one day in a conversation relat- 
ing to the death of Charles the First, King of England, 
who had been delivered up to his enemies by treason, an 
interlocutor suddenly interrupted the conversation by 
asking the value of a Roman denarius. This was a sur- 
prise to the listeners, who saw no possible connection 
between the question asked and the conversation that 
was in progress. But, nevertheless, the questioner had 
pursued a logical train of thought. From the treason 
which had betrayed Charles the First he had passed, 
by the association of resemblance, to the treason which 
had betrayed Jesus ; and he wished to know which of 
these two treasons had been best rewarded. 

George Sand* has somewhere written : — 

" I have never seen the butterfly Thais flying, with- 
out seeing Lake Nemi again ; I have never noticed cer- 
tain mosses in my herbarium, without again finding 
myself under the dense shade of the evergreens of 
Franconia. A little pebble causes me to see again the 
mountain from which I carried it, and to see it again in 
its least details from summit to base. The odor of 
bind-weed calls up before me a wild landscape of Spain 
of which I know neither the name nor the location, but 
which I traversed with my mother when I was four 
years old." ^ 

1 George Sand, Revue des Dcux-Mondes du 15 Nov. 1863. 



THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 1 37 

Hobbes ^ says again : " From St. Andrew the mind 
runneth to St. Peter because their names are read 
together ; from St. Peter to a stone, from the same 
cause, from foundation to church, and from church to 
people, and from people to tumult : and according to 
this example, the mind may run almost from anything 
to anything." 

Each of us can find similar examples in his own ex- 
perience. Sometimes the links which have caused the 
filiation of our ideas escape us ; but with a little reflec- 
tion we are almost always able to recover them, and 
even if they remain unknown, we have the right to 
affirm, in accordance with every analogy, that they still 
exist. 

144. Intellectual Determinism. — The law of the asso- 
ciation of ideas obliges us to recognize the fact that in 
the mind everything is coherent, everything has its 
connections. Just as, in the physical world, phenom- 
ena are derived from and engender other phenomena ; 
so in the moral world, thoughts call up one another ; 
they have by their nature, or they contract by accident, 
a kinship which brings them together. In mind, as in 
nature, hazard is an empty term. Each state of con- 
sciousness is determined by a previous state of con- 
sciousness. There is an intellectual determinism* just 
as there is a physical determinism. 

145. The Association of Feelings. — Even our feelings, 

1 Hobbes, Human Nature, ch. iv. 



138 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

in their evolution, obey the law of association, not only 
as they suggest all the ideas which are connected with 
the particular emotion that we experience, but also as 
they excite, by a sort of affinity, all analogous feelings. 
Are we angry at something that has happened ? At 
once feelings of malevolence or antipathy arise in our 
hearts against those who are about us, and sometimes 
against those who deserve it least. Are we sad ? Not 
only will all agreeable and joyous representations be 
banished from our imaginations as by fate ; not only 
will sad reflections, by a sort of involuntary selection, 
be accumulated in our thoughts, but anger, malicious- 
ness, envy, and discontent with everybody and every- 
thing, will follow in the train of the initial feeling. On 
the contrary, are we happy ? Then at once we are over- 
whelmed with a throng of gentle and joyous conceptions ; 
and our sensibility is invaded by a whole flood of affec- 
tionate and benevolent emotions. 

146. Principles of the Association of Ideas. — The 
association of ideas, or rather the association of our 
states of consciousness, whatever they may be, is then 
a fundamental law of human nature. But how does 
this law act, according to what principles does it exer- 
cise its power .? What are the connections, what are 
the relations, which usually determine the sequence of 
our thoughts and feelings .-* 

147. Classification of these Principles. — For a long 
time philosophers have attempted to reduce to a certain 



THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 139 

number of categories, or species, the multiplied rela- 
tions which may serve as mediums or bonds of union 
between our thoughts. The older pvSychologists distin- 
guished the principles of association into two wide 
classes : the first, accidental and superficial ; the second, 
logical and essential. 

148. Accidental Principles. — Of this number are : 

1. Contigidty in Space. — We pass from the idea of a 
city to the idea of all the adjacent places ; Rome makes 
us think of the Forum, of the Campus Martins, and the 
Roman Campagna ; Naples, of Vesuvius and Pompeii. 
Our thought travels insensibly from one country to 
another country adjoining, and from one street to an 
adjacent street. 

2. Contigidty in Time. — Mirabeau makes us think of 
the Revolution and of his contemporaries, Louis XVI., 
etc. ; Napoleon III., of the Crimean war, Mexican war, 
and the war of 1870. There is here an objective con- 
tiguity, so to speak, between the events which have 
succeeded one another in time. But there is another, 
a subjective contiguity, which brings together and asso- 
ciates two ideas or two feelings, for the simple reason 
that they have co-existed or have immediately followed 
one another in the mind. 

3. Resemblance. — This is one of the most fruitful 
principles of the association of ideas, and certain phi- 
losophers reduce to it all the others. Two contempo- 
rary events, or two monuments contiguous in space, 



I40 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

resemble each other because they belong to the same 
epoch, or because they exist in the same place. But 
more definite resemblances operate with still greater 
force. For example, a Gothic church recalls to our 
recollection all churches of the same description which 
we have visited, and a school carries back our thoughts 
to all the schools which we know. It is important to 
note that the associations founded on the principle of 
resemblance may be established between the things 
which are the object of our thought, or between the 
ideas themselves, or between words. A simple analogy 
in the sound of words sometimes exposes us to the risk 
of seeing the current of our thoughts completely 
turned aside. Many apparent freaks of our imagina- 
tion, and many of our so-called random thoughts, are 
due to the consonance of two words very different in 
meaning, which makes us jump without logical transi- 
tion from one conception to another. 

4. Contrast. — Like resemblance, contrast sometimes 
gives direction to our ideas. We are secretly led, in 
the presence of a given object, to conceive, not only 
everything which resembles it, but also all that is in 
contrast with it. Certain writers, like Lamartine,* 
always bent on comparisons, obey the law of resem- 
blance ; while others, like Victor Hugo,* who use and 
abuse antithesis and oppositions, are under the domina- 
tion of contrast. 

149. Rational Principles. — The different principles of 



THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 141 

association which we have just enumerated, establish 
among ideas only relations which are either exterior, or 
even fanciful, as in the case of the analogy of words. 
Other principles, on the contrary, bring together two 
ideas or two facts by virtue of an intrinsic nexus, or of 
an essential and logical relation. 

I. Relation of Cause to Effect and of Effect to Cause. — 
We descend instinctively, so to speak, the ladder which 
leads from a cause to its effect, and, vice versa, we 
ascend with the same facility from effect to cause. In 
the presence of a carriage overturned in the street, we 
think immediately of the events (broken spring, fright- 
ened horse, etc.) which have caused the accident. In 
the presence of a hail-storm which devastates the coun- 
try, we are naturally led to imagine the effects which 
' will result from it (devastated fields, ruined harvests, 
broken shrubs, etc.). 

2. Relation of Pinnciple to Consequence. — A relation 
analogous to the preceding is that which associates, not 
simply two connected events, as cause and effect, but 
two ideas, one of which is a principle and the other its 
consequence. The relation of principle to consequence 
is in some sense but a relation of subjective causality. 
Some one mentions in our presence a philosophical 
theory, pantheism,* for example ; and immediately our 
mind considers its consequences, as the suppression of 
human liberty, or the denial of the divine personality, 
etc. And so we read in some book an apology for regi- 



142 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

cide ; and we at once catch a glimpse of the principles 
which gave rise to this consequence, such as contempt 
for human life, ardent love of liberty, etc. 

3. Relation of Means to End. — On seeing a machine 
we ask ourselves what purpose it serves, and, recipro- 
cally, on considering a manufactured article, we inquire 
by what means the workman or the machine has pro. 
duced it. A bird's wing makes us think of flying ; and 
the harvest, of the grain which was sown. The relation 
of means to end is hardly more than causality reversed, 
in the sense that the end is, in reality, the cause of the 
means employed, and consequently called the final 
cause. 

We might also distinguish the relation of sign to the 
thing signified. A flag makes us think of the regiment 
or our country. Smoke evokes the idea of fire, etc. 

150. Reduction of these Different Principles. — How- 
ever exact the preceding enumeration may be, it is per- 
missible to inquire if all these principles of association 
may not be reduced or brought back to a smaller num- 
ber of relations, or even to a single one. 

Philosophers long ago attempted this reduction. 
Aristotle distinguished only resemblance and conti- 
guity : — 

" When we are pursuing a thought that does not pre- 
sent itself to us immediately, we are led to it by start- 
ing from another idea by means of resemblance, of 
contrast, or of contiguity." 



THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 143 

Hume admitted three principles : Resemblance, con- 
tiguity, and causality. In general, the contemporary 
English school recognizes but two principles : Conti- 
guity, meaning co-existence or immediate succession of 
ideas in consciousness, and similarity or resemblance. 

But we might go still farther and show that the fun- 
damental, the unique principle of the association of 
ideas, is subjective contiguity, that is to say, simulta- 
neity or immediate succession in consciousness. 

151. The Principle of Contiguity. — John Stuart Mill * 
clearly expressed this conclusion when he said : ''When 
two impressions have been frequently experienced (or 
even thought of) either simultaneously or in immediate 
succession, then whenever either of these impressions 
or the idea of it recurs, it tends to excite the idea of 
the other." 

In other terms, the one essential principle of the 
association of ideas is the previous co-existence in con- 
sciousness of two feelings or of two conceptions which, 
having once been brought together, have contracted 
the habit of always reappearing one after the other. 

In support of this theory, it is observed as a fact that 
all the associations of ideas, on whatever seeming prin- 
ciple they may be founded, have, as a condition, this 
previous contact, this succession, this simultaneity in 
consciousness. Contiguity in space is easily reducible 
to subjective contiguity. As a fact, we pass from the 
idea of the Capitol to the idea of the Tarpeian Rock, 



144 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

only because, previously, these two ideas were brought 
into juxtaposition in our mind when we learned Roman 
history or the topography of Rome. The same is true 
of the essential relations of causality, of finality, etc. 
It is evident that we associate with a given effect the 
idea of a given cause, only because we have already 
experienced this relation. The principle of causality 
doubtless suggests to us, in view of every effect, the 
idea of some possible cause, but it does not teach us 
what this cause is. If by virtue of the association of 
ideas we think of this cause rather than another, it is 
because experience has already presented to us, asso- 
ciated in a succession of thoughts, the effect and its 
particular cause which we have under our eyes. 

152. The Association of Ideas is but a Habit — We are 
justified, then, in concluding that the association of 
ideas, understood as the aggregate of the affinities 
which unite our conceptions, is but a habit — the habit 
of re-thinking, one after another, the ideas which, once 
at least, have already been connected in consciousness. 

153. The Connection of Ideas. — But beyond this asso- 
ciation, wholly mechanical and fatal, as everything is 
which proceeds from habit, we must recollect that we 
have the faculty of connecting our ideas logically ac- 
cording to the principles of causality, of finality, etc., 
which constitute the reason. (See Chapter XII.) 

** The association of ideas, properly so called, is a 
purely mechanical phenomenon which bears no resem- 



THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS I45 

blance to that other order of rational and reasonable 
association which logic and rhetoric require and teach, 
and which is called the connection of ideas. On the 
contrary, these two processes are opposed to each other. 
In order really to connect ideas as the reason requires, 
we must struggle against the yoke of an extrinsic asso- 
ciation of ideas. Poor writers substitute mechanical 
association for the intrinsic connection of ideas. "^ 

154. Association by Resemblance. — There is one sin- 
gle category of associations which we do not seem able 
to reduce to the law of contiguity. These are the 
associations, so important and so numerous, and to 
which poetry is indebted for so many agreeable com 
parisons — the associations founded on resemblance. 

John Stuart Mill himself is willing to admit, in addi- 
tion to the general law which we have borrowed from 
him, a complementary law, which may be formulated as 
follows : " Similar ideas have the power to call up one 
another." In other terms, apart from all previous asso- 
ciation, ideas have a secret tendency to unite, from the 
simple fact that they have a common resemblance.^ 

155. The Association of Ideas and the Memory. — We 

1 Paul Janet. Traite elementaire de philosophie, p. ^i. 

2 The partisans of the reduction to unity of all the principles of association 
do not acknowledge themselves beaten, 

" I meet in the street for the first time," says Rabier, " a person who makes me 
think of a friend who resembles him, who died twenty years ago Here surely is a 
case where there was no simultaneity of two representations in consciousness, pre- 
vious to association. Let us analyze this case. The actual representation makes 
us think of a past representation. Certainly; but this is because these two repre- 
sentations have ftiarks in common." Rabier, op. cit., p. 191. 



146 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGV 

now understand how the association of ideas may be 
considered as the grand law of the recall of recollec- 
tions. United like companions in chains, the states of 
consciousness form couples, one element of which can- 
not appear in the mind without a tendency, on the part 
of the other, to reappear also. The perception of an 
object reminds us in succession of the different ideas 
with which it has previously co-existed. One recollec- 
tion revives another. In other terms, the memory, 
which is a habit, an acquired disposition to recall an 
object, is put in play by another habit, the association 
of ideas, which is an acquired disposition to think of an 
object in connection with another object. 

156. The Imagination — We shall see in the following 
chapter that the association of ideas does not play a 
less important part in the development of the imagina- 
tion. Just as it is the instrument for the restoration of 
recollections, so we must attribute to it, in great part, 
the combinations of images which constitute the pecul- 
iar products of the imagination. 

157. The Reason — Philosophers of the English school 
go farther ; they believe they can explain the necessary 
principles which govern our thought, by the association 
or constant concatenation, ever verified in the experi- 
ence of all men, of the phenomena which succeed one 
another in consciousness. The relation of cause to effect 
is but an inseparable association. Farther on (Chapter 
XII.) we shall state why this theory cannot be admitted. 



THE LAW OF THE ASSOCIATION oK IDEAS 147 

SUMMARY. 

77. THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS is an improper 
expression. It would be better to say the suggestion of ideas, 
or, still belter, the suggestion of states of consciousness. 

78. The association of ideas explains in REVERIE, and 
even in REFLECTIVE THOUGHT, the transition from one 
conception to another conception. 

79. The succession of our ideas is subject to a true intel- 
lectual DETERMINISM. 

80. Even the feelings are associated, call one another up, 

and are mutually suggestive. 

81. Many principles of association have been distin- 
guished. There are ACCIDENTAL PRINCIPLES, like 
contiguity in space, contiguity in time, resemblance, contrast ; 
and LOG-ICAL PRINCIPLES, like causality, relation of 
principle to consequence, and finality. 

82. But these different principles may be reduced to one, 
SUBJECTIVE CONTIGUITY, that is, simultaneity, or the 
previous succession in consciousness of two ideas which 
henceforth will tend to suggest one another. 

83. The association of ideas, then, is but a MECHANI- 
CAL HABIT which the mind contracts by reason of its pre- 
vious experiences. 

84. We must distinguish from the mechanical association 
of ideas, the logical and rational process which may be 
called the INTRINSIC CONNECTION of IDEAS. 



148 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

85. It does not seem that ASSOCIATIONS THROUGH 
RESEMBLANCE can be reduced to the unique law of 
contiguity in consciousness. 

86. The association of ideas is the law of the RECALL 
of recollections in the MEMORY, and of the COMBINA- 
TION of images in the IMAGINATION. 



THE IMAGINATION 



149 



CHAPTER IX 

THE IMAGINATION AND ITS DIFFERENT FORMS 

158. Complex Nature of the Imagination. — In its ori- 
gin and humble beginnings, the imagination is a function 
of conservation like the memory, from which it differs 
only in degree. It is then the imaginative memory, the 
representative or reproductive imagination ; and con- 
sists in vividly representing, with the eyes closed, what 
has been seen with the eyes open. It is a more vivid 
memory, a picturesque memory. We simply recollect 
to have seen on a certain day, in the Jardin d'acclima- 
.tatioji, some of the natives of Ceylon ; this is a fact of 
memory. But, in addition, we see them again with 
their costumes, with their attitudes, with their curious 
dances, and with their brown skin which makes them 
resemble Florentine bronzes ; these are facts of the 
imagination. 

It is true that the imagination promptly passes this 
first stage where it is but the copy of reality. It soon 
becomes a function of combination and elaboration ; it 
modifies in a thousand ways the material which the 
imaginative memory places at its disposal ; it constructs 
and creates ; it is finally the inventive or creative imagr 



I50 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

illation, or what might also be called the active imagi- 
nation. 

159. Inventive Imagination. — It is particularly in this 
last sense that we generally understand the term imag- 
ination. We are ever speaking of its power and fertil- 
ity. Now these characteristics belong only to the 
second stage of the imagination. Man of imagination 
is synonymous with poet, inventor, or artist. 

160, Importance of the Representative Imagination. — 
But we must not disregard the simply representative 
imagination, which preserves the exact representation 
of the forms and other sensible qualities of objects. 
All minds are not equally endowed in this respect. 
One man, though having a very acute intelligence and 
very expert in abstract reflection, will be incapable of 
representing vividly to himself the things which he has 
seen, even those which are most familiar to him. Ask 
him the color of his friend's hair, or what dress his 
sister wore yesterday, and he does not know. He is 
lacking in that inner sense of imagination which always 
makes us see things as in a picture, — which to the 
idea always adds the image. Doubtless this power of 
representation is not necessary for the pursuits of the 
philosopher, or for the researches of abstract thought ; 
but I would not dare affirm that it is not of some service 
in the conceptions of the geometrician and in the studies 
of the physicist and the chemist. At all events, the 
poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, and artists 



THE IMAGINATION ■ 151 

in general, cannot do without it. The painter, even 
the most original and the most inventive, ought to begin 
by being capable of seeing objects mentally with their 
colors and forms. It is useless for certain philosophers 
to say that the imagination appears only at the moment 
when it modifies or transforms our recollections ; these 
very recollections may be useful material for the future 
constructions of the artist and the inventor. 

161. The Imagination embraces all the Objects of 
Sense. — The representative imagination thus collects 
the material which the creative imagination will after- 
wards turn to account by virtue of its own peculiar 
power. 

This material is at first borrowed from all the senses, 
and not merely, as we might at first suppose, from the 
sense of sight. 

Without doubt the greater part of the representations 
of the imagination are derived from sight, which is the 
most powerful of all of our senses, the richest in per- 
ceptions, and also the one whose recollections are 
revived with the most clearness. Etymologically, also, 
the imagination seems to be connected exclusively with 
the sense of sight. The image is properly the concep- 
tion of a visual form. It is no less certain that the 
other senses also give rise to images, that is, to mental 
representations. The musician imagines sounds and 
mentally combines them ; the compositor imagines the 
tangible forms of letters, since he recognizes them by 



152 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



the touch. Even savors and odors may be represented 
by the imagination. 

" How many pleasing images have been borrowed 
from the fragrance of the fields and the melody of the 
2:roves ; not to mention that sister art, whose masfical 
influence over the human frame it has been, in all ages, 
the highest boast of poetry to celebrate ! " ^ 

162. The Imagination and the Inner Emotions. — But 
the scope of the imagination would still be too limited, 
if we were content to extend it to objects of sense 
alone. We can also imagine afterwards our states of 
consciousness, and particularly our emotions, our pleas- 
ures, our sorrows, and our passions. A sorrow long 
since forgotten smites my heart and fills my eyes 
with tears, when I revisit the place where I first 
experienced it. Poets and novelists evidently have 
recourse to the imagination, when they paint with 
such vivid colors characters which they invent, and 
personages to whom they attribute the different pas- 
sions of the soul. 

Even including abstract and general conceptions, 
there is nothing which may not be in some degree an 
object of the imagination. We ascribe life and form 
to the most abstract conceptions, as to humanity, to 
country, and to nature. But, in this case, the imagina- 
tion is no longer representative, but inventive ; it adds 
something of its own to the suggestions of memory 

I Dugald Stewart, On the Human Mind. Part I., ch. viii. 



THE IMAGINATION 



153 



163. Analysis of a Page of Lamartine. — Let lis read 
a page of a poet, and we shall find in it imagination in 
all its forms : — 

" One evening, do you recall it ? We were rowing 
in silence ; there was heard in the distance, on the deep 
and beneath the sky, only the noise of the rowers, who 
struck in cadence the harmonious waves." 

The imagination of sight and the imagination of 
hearing are intimately associated in this stanza, which 
represents to us at the same moment a lake, its waves, 
the sky, and also the noise of the oars breaking the 
silence of the night. 

" O lake, speechless rocks ! grotto ! forest obscure ! 
You whom time spares and whom it may restore to 
youth, beautiful nature, preserve at least the recollection 
of that night ! " 

Here the imagination is mingled, so to speak, with 
abstract thought. At first it personifies nature ; and 
then it introduces the idea of life, old age, and of pos- 
sible restoration to youth, — abstract and general ideas 
in the first degree, — into the representations which the 
poet makes of the objects of nature. 

" Eternity, nothingness, the past, gloomy abysses, 
what do you do with the days which you ingulf ? 
Speak : restore the sublime raptures which you have 
ravished from us ! " 

In these last verses, the poet imagines his past emo- 
tions, his love, and the ardent joys of his lost love. 



154 



ELEMENTS OF TSYCHOLOGY 



" Let the moaning wind, the sighing reed, the light 
perfumes of your balmy air, all that is heard, seen, or 
breathed, — let everything say : they have loved." 

The imagination of smell appears in the second verse, 
associated with images furnished by the other senses. 

164. The Proper Office of the Imagination. — The 
senses, the sensibility, and the consciousness, and con- 
sequently the memory, are thus the sources of the 
imagination ; but the imagination proper has its own 
activity, which manifests itself by the changes to which 
it subjects the elements received from experience. Let 
us try to analyze the different stages of that original 
and renovating elaboration from whence proceed the 
fictions of the poet, the compositions of the artist, some 
of the most important inventions of science, and also 
the delicious reveries which charm our life. 

165. Additions and Retrenchments. — At first, the im- 
agination proceeds by addition and by retrenchment. 
Obedient to its laws, it adds some additional strokes of 
beauty to the already beautiful face which recollection 
presents to it ; and it clears away from a real landscape 
the accidents which mar it and the blemishes which 
disfigure it. Sometimes, doubtless, these additions and 
retrenchments, which seem to be original inventions of 
the imagination, are but weaknesses or blanks in the 
memory, which forgets this or that. But usually the 
modifications introduced by the imagination into the 
photographic representation of reality, are deliberate 



THE IMAGINATION I 55 

changes. It is by design that Rabelais '* magnifies the 
personage of Gargantua, that he gives him eighteen 
chins, and that he causes him to be nourished on the 
milk of seventeen thousand nine hundred and thirteen 
cows. It is by an effort of the imagination, that Swift,* 
in his Gulliver's Travels, has conceived his Liliputians. 

Let us remark, however, that the imagination is more 
inclined to enlarge than to lessen. All imaginative 
men are inclined to exaggeration and hyperbole. 

166. Combination of Different Images. — Most of the 
constructions of the imagination are due to associations 
or combinations of images borrowed from different 
objects. It has been truly said that the imagination 
does not create. Its boldest novelties are in reality but 
combinations or associations of different elements bor- 
rowed from reality. Is it proposed to imagine a char- 
acter which, in a comedy or in a novel, shall represent 
- a miser ? The poet or the novelist will gather here and 
there the different features of avarice which his memory 
recalls to him ; he will then place them in juxtaposition, 
and will fuse them into one harmonious whole. Is it 
proposed to paint or chisel a beautiful face } Here, 
again, the imagination of the artist, far from copying 
the reality, will combine different images gathered from 
experience ; he will combine the eyes of one, the nose 
of another, and the brow of a third, etc. 

It is to these combinations that must also be referred 
the work of the imagination, which consists, as it hap- 



156 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

pens every moment with the poets, in associating the 
abstract and the concrete, the intellectual and the sensi- 
ble. Most metaphors and comparisons are derived 
from this source. Our imagination is not simply the 
power of combining into one whole a great variety of 
images borrowed from sensible reality ; but is also 
the faculty of vivifying our most abstract concep- 
tions by combining with them to material representa- 
tions. 

167. Guiding Principles of the Imagination. — But in 
this work of combination and construction which par- 
ticularly characterizes the imagination, the materials 
are not everything. The poet who creates beautiful 
characters, and the painter who imagines beautiful 
figures, must have a guiding idea, an ideal. Among all 
the recollections which a vivid and powerful memory 
suggests to him, a choice must be made ; and this choice 
is possible only because the artist pictures to himself a 
certain ideal. 

168. The IdeaL — It is difficult to define the ideal, 
which is the thing of all others the most difficult to 
apprehend. We do not take a step in advance by de- 
claring that the ideal is the beautiful. The beautiful 
itself is a very complex expression which designates a 
great number of very different things. What likeness 
is there, for example, between a beautiful poem and a 
beautiful statue .? (See Chapter XV.) The beautiful 
is an abstraction by which we designate whatever pro- 



THE IMAGINATION 1 57 

duces analogous effects on our sensibility, whatever 
moves us, whatever transports us with admiration. 

There are as many kinds of beauty as there are par- 
ticular and distinct arts. The poet, the musician, the 
painter, each follows a different idea — the precise idea 
which is furnished him by his own imagination or by 
his individual taste, and which varies with the very 
diversity of natures or temperaments. But if it is 
difficult to define this idea, this ideal, it is none the less 
certain that the ideal exists, and that without it, the 
imagination, the richest in recollections, would be 
powerless to create, to cast into a mould, or to conform 
to a type, all the resources which are at its command. 

169. Office of the Imagination in the Arts. — Imagina- 
tion has always been considered the poetic, the artistic 
faculty par excellence. Doubtless the talent of the poet 
and the artist is eminently a fact of sensibility ; but 
there must be added to vivid emotions a powerful 
imagination, evoking a great number of recollections 
and capable of transforming and idealizing them. 

Without im^tgination, art under all its forms would be 
but the servile photography of reality. But without 
wishing to speak ill of the literary school which styles 
itself realism * and nattwalisni,* without thinking of de- 
preciating what may be interesting in exact and stu- 
dious descriptions of nature — descriptions, moreover, 
which suppose an intense activity of the representative 
imagination — it is evident that art is something be- 



158 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

sides a photographic negative of nature. Art idealizes 
and invents. At one time it creates things that do not 
exist, and at others it embellishes that which does exist. 

" It is nature who furnishes the materials ; it is she 
who gives the marble, the color, the line, the image, the 
word ; but the imagination of the sculptor, the painter, 
the poet, adds to them emotion and thought. Out of 
these combined elements she forms a whole which 
before did not exist, a body which she animates with 
her hands when she has found that happy combination 
which she calls the beautiful." 

170. The Imagination in Practical Life. — The imagina- 
tion also plays an important part in ordinary life. If it 
sometimes leads us astray and is the source of many 
errors, it also presents this advantage, that it nurtures 
our reveries and embellishes reality ; and the delusive 
and innocent fictions which it suggests to us are like 
beneficent dreams which sustain us and aid us in sup- 
porting the misfortunes of life. 

Imagination is the basis of hope and of all those 
cheerful conceptions with which we love to deck the 
future. And who would dare deny that hope is one of 
the essential supports of human activity ? How many 
poor wretches there are with nothing left but hope, for- 
ever sustained by a beneticent imagination. And it is 
still the imagination which, while vividly representing 
to us the desired end which must be attained, and while 
enabling us to multiply means and devices for reaching 



THE IMAGINATION 1 59 

it, excites our activity, and at the same time renders it 
fruitful. 

And though it may not lead us to any result, it will 
always have the merit of charming us, of consoling us, 
of multiplying our joys, and for a moment of suspend- 
ing our sorrows. 

" When in our conception of the future," says Rabier, 
" the imagination has full course, and, without regard to 
the real or the possible, spreads before us only the most 
seductive prospects ; she is building, as we say, castles 
in the air ! Let us not speak too harshly of them. 
There are so many people who have no others ! " ^ 

171. Imagination and Science. — It is generally sup- 
posed that science is the enemy of the imagination. 
Science, it is said, aspires to the truth, and the imagi- 
nation is the source of fables and untruths. We forget 
that the imagination is a supple and flexible faculty 
which lends itself to a variety of uses. Just as it in- 
spires the poet with his fictions, so it suggests to the 
scholar the hypotheses which will conduct him to his 
discoveries. 

" Science itself, at least natural science, is impossible 
without imagination. By means of it Newton * looks 
into the future and Cuvier * into the past. The grand 
hypotheses from which grand theories have issued are 
daughters of the imagination." ^ 

1 Rabier, op. cit.^ p. 201. 

2 Paul Janet, La philosophie dti bonheur^ p. 61. 



l6o ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

To the same effect Tyndall * has said, — 

" There are tories even in science, who regard imagi- 
nation as a faculty to be feared and avoided rather than 
employed. They had observed its action in weak 
vessels and were unduly impressed by its disasters. 
But they might with equal justice point to exploded 
boilers as an argument against the use of steam. 
Bounded and conditioned by co-operant reason, imagi- 
nation becomes the mightiest instrument of the physi- 
cal discoverer. Newton's passage from a falling apple 
to a falling moon was, at the outset, a leap of the imagi- 
nation." ^ 

It is not merely because, in theory, it inspires the 
scholar with his hypotheses, but it is also because, in 
practice, it suggests to him his inventions, that the 
imagination ought to be considered as a useful auxiliary 
to science. Doubtless, the applications of science are 
usually the result of studied deduction, or of the logi- 
cal development of a theory. But in most cases the 
imagination co-operates in this labor, and by provoking 
expedients and new combinations, it is the imagination, 
in part, which prepares the way for practical inventions. 

172. Dangers of the Imagination. — But beside the 
good, there is the bad ; and the detractors of the im- 
agination feel no more embarrassment in pointing out 
its dangers than its admirers do in setting forth its 
advantages. 

^ Tyndall, Scientific Use of the Imagination, p. i6. 



THE IMAGINATION l6l 

In poetry, and in art in general, it sometimes turns 
us aside from nature and betrays us into the artificial 
and the false. In practical life it is the source of the 
romantic, and by its enchanting fictions it disgusts us 
with reality. According to the strong expression of 
Malebranche, the imagination is XhQ madcap of the Iioitse, 
the one who throws the home into disorder. Finally, 
in science, the imagination, Pascal says, is a cheating 
mistress ; the errors she has inspired are more than the 
truths she has discovered. She inclines the incautious 
scholar to dispense with observation and reasoning, and 
to accept his own reveries for demonstrated truths. 

But all the dangers due to the ill-directed use of a 
disordered imagination to which the reason is not made 
a counterpoise, ought not to make us forget its benefits 
and the influence which it exerts upon our faculties. It 
animates and vivifies the intelligence ; it excites the 
will ; and at the same time extends the sensibility; for 
we really love only the persons and the things whose 
image is vividly presented to us by the imagination. 

SUMMARY. 

87. The IMAGINATION is a complex function which pre- 
sents itself under different and very distinct forms. At one 
time, it is merely a function of conservation, and is then 
called IMAGINATIVE MEMORY, or REPRESENTATIVE 
IMAGINATION. At another, it is a function of combina- 
tion and elaboration, and it is then the INVENTIVE or 
CREATIVE IMAGINATION. 



l62 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

88. The representative imagination accumulates materials 
for the future combinations of the inventive imagination. 

89. The imagination embraces all the objects of sense and 
also the inner states of the mind. 

90. But experience merely furnishes the imagination with 
the material which it employs ; while the imagination draws 
from itself the IDEAL conceptions according to which it 
arranges its materials. 

91. The proper work of the imagination consists either in 
ADDING- or in RETRENCHING, or, above all, in COM- 
BINING new forms. 

92. The imagination plays an important part in the FINE 
ARTS. It permits the artist either to invent outside of nature, 
or to idealize nature. 

93. The imagination is also a PRACTICAL FACULTY. 

It gives inspiration to hope ; it excites activity ; it surrounds 
us with agreeable fictions. 

94. Finally, the imagination has its importance in scien- 
tific research, where it suggests HYPOTHESES and pro- 
motes practical INVENTIONS. 

95. Per cofitra, the imagination also presents great 
dangers. It leads the artist astray into the fictitious and the 
false: it is the source of the ROMANTIC; and exposes 
the mind to all sorts of errors. 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 163 



X 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION. ABSTRACT 
IDEAS AND GENERAL IDEAS. 

173. Particular Ideas and General Ideas. — In their 
proper exercise, the senses and also the consciousness 
furnish us, at first, only with particular or individual 
ideas. Doubtless consciousness envelopes and accom- 
panies all the operations of the mind, abstraction and 
generalization, as well as elementary perceptions. But, 
in its primitive data, the consciousness, like the senses, 
suggests to us only particular judgments with reference 
to a single fact or a single individual. 

I am conscious, first of all, say, of a pain which makes 
me groan, or of a feeling of fear which makes me 
tremble. 

It is only subsequently that, grasping the relation 
which exists between these different emotions, my 
mind disengages from them the general idea of sensi- 
bility. 

In the same way, I perceive through the senses a 
given tree, then another tree, then a shrub, and finally 
a plant ; and from these particular perceptions I after- 
ward rise to the general idea of vegetables. 

In a word, every perception is particular, that is to 



164 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

say, relative to a single and definite object, I do not 
perceive color in general, but the color of such or such 
an object. I am not conscious of intelligence, but of 
different intellectual facts. 

Particular ideas are, so to speak, the primitive stratum 
of the intelligence, the first story of our mind. By a 
subsequent effort which constitutes what is called gen- 
eralization, we grasp the resemblance of individual 
objects, or the relations of particular ideas, and we 
thence conceive general ideas. 

174. Concrete Ideas and Abstract Ideas. — But gener- 
alization itself supposes a preliminary operation of the 
same kind, and this is abstraction. 

The opposition between the abstract and the concrete 
is analogous to that which exists between the general 
and th.^ pai'ticular. The general idea is always an ab- 
stract idea. The particular object which we perceive is 
always concrete and complex ; it comprises several ele- 
ments. The color of a rose is perceived along with the 
form and perfume of that flower. But our mind has 
the power to consider one of these elements to the ex- 
clusion of all the others, either the color, or the form, 
or the perfume of the rose. Here are three preHmi- 
nary abstractions, which, compared with other analo- 
gous abstractions, with the color, form, and perfume of 
the lily, the violet, etc., lead us to conceive the general 
idea of color, form, and odor. 

The concrete is whatever the senses make us know 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 165 

immediately, it is the reality directly perceived. Cor- 
rectly speaking, the abstract exists only in our thought. 
The abstract supposes an analysis of the complex ele- 
ments of reality which the mind considers successively, 
in such a way as to examine one of them while ehmi- 
nating all the others. 

The concrete, moreover, is not merely the aggregate 
of material and sensible realities ; the inner facts, the 
particular phenomena, which consciousness reveals to 
us one-aftejT another, are also concrete facts. 

175. Abstraction and Generalization. — It is expedient, 
then, to distinguish, as distinct operations of the mind, 
the two intellectual powers called abstraction and gen 
eralization. Both concur in that elaboration of knowl- 
edge and form a part of those functions of combination, 
which we have distinguished from the functions of 
acquisition and conservation. 

Abstraction may be defined as the operation by zvJiicJi 
the iniiid, decomposing the complex elements of perception^ 
considers them apart, one after another. 

Generalization is the operation by which the 7nind, 
collecting the analogoiis or similar elements which a pre- 
liminary abstraction has disting^iisJied and separated iji a 
complex reality, arranges and distributes into categories, 
genera, and species, either the elements themselves {ideas 
of color, form, savor, odor, etc.), or the individual tilings 
in ivJiich similar or ajialogons elements have been success- 
ively recognized (idea of hnmaiiity, ideas of European, 
Frenchmen, etc.). 



l66 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

In other terms, by means of abstraction, we are able 
successively to detach from the individual objects which 
we have perceived, the idea of some one of their quali- 
ties ; and then, by means of generalization, we combine 
these successive abstractions in such a way as to form 
a general idea.^ 

176. Two Forms of the G-eneral Idea. — It seems at 
first sight that there may be two very distinct categories 
of general ideas. The general idea, in fact, is some- 
times the idea of a class of beings or individuals 
related to one another and resembling one another by 
some common quality, as minerals, plants, men, etc. ; 
or it may be the idea of these relations, or of that 
quality common to a great number of individuals, as 
reason, sensibility, density, iveigJit, etc. 

177. Extension and Comprehension. — It is to bc re- 
marked, however, that every general idea, of either form, 
contains at once, in different degrees, either the repre- 
sentation of a large number of individuals, or the con- 
ception of their common qualities. Thus, the idea of 
vegetables is, without doubt, primarily the idea of all 
the objects which can be included under this general 
appellation ; but it is also, implicitly, the idea of their 
common qualities (growth, power of nutrition, absence 
of sensibility, particular structure, roots, stem, flower, 
etc.). 

1 It is to be observed that the terms abstraction and generalization, like other 
terms in the vocabulary of psychology, as perception, sensation, etc., represent at 
the same time both the operation by which the mind abstracts and generalizes, and 
the results of these operations, that is to say, abstract and general ideas. 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 1 67 

So, also, that which dominates in the idea of color, 
that which is its prominent characteristic, is the repro- 
duction of a quality common to all colored objects. But 
we cannot think of the color without thinking more or 
less of the colored objects themselves. 

We call the extension of the general idea the quality 
which it has of being applied to a larger or smaller 
number of individuals (the idea of European, for exam- 
ple, has greater extension than the idea of Frenchman). 
We call the comprehension of the general idea the quality 
which it has of representing a larger or smaller number 
of common qualities (the idea of Frenchman has more 
comprehension than the idea of European). 

Extension and comprehension are in an inverse ratio. 
The more individuals a general idea contains, the fewer 
common qualities does it represent. Minerals, animals, 
and vegetables are general ideas, more comprehensive 
-but less extensive than the idea of being, which includes 
them all, but which is the general idea reduced to its 
minimum of comprehension. 

178. Abstraction and Attention. — Abstraction is one 
of the conditions of generalization. What, then, is 
abstraction itself } According to certain philosophers, 
abstraction is but a form of attention. 

"Abstraction," says La Romiguiere,''^ "is not a new 
faculty to be added to the faculties which constitute 
the understanding. It is but the attention fixed upon 
one quality of an object, which, giving this quality a 



l68 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

precedence over the others, separates it in some sense 
from them, or abstracts it from them." ^ 

It is, nevertheless, true that abstraction is an opera- 
tion different from attention. And, in fact, in the 
greater number of cases, abstraction is instinctive and 
irrefiective. It is without effort that the mind decom- 
poses the elements of reality. It suffices for this pur- 
pose that one quality predominate in the objects which 
are submitted to the faculties of perception. It is 
without attention that the child is struck with the com- 
mon characteristics of the different specimens of the 
vegetable species which present themselves in succes- 
sion to his notice. Correctly speaking, the attention 
plays scarcely any part in the formation of the most of 
our abstractions. From analogy, and from some resem- 
blance spontaneously discerned, there springs forth the 
abstract idea without reflection. 

It is only reflective abstraction which can be con- 
founded with attention. In this case, indeed, the atten- 
tion which chooses its object, and which, among several 
qualities blended in the same perception, considers but 
one exclusively — this attention is already an abstraction. 

179 Abstraction and Imagination. — If abstraction 
has some connection with attention, it is absolutely 
opposed to the imagination. To imagine is to deter- 
mine as fully as possible the representation or the con- 
ception of an object ; it is to attribute to it all the 

1 La Romiguiere, Lemons de philosophie. Paul Janet advances the same theory 
in his Traite elementaire de philosophic^ p. 155. 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 169 

qualities and all the details which characterize it ; it is 
to see it just as it is in reality. By an inverse move- 
ment, abstraction simplifies ; it suppresses in intellect- 
ual representations all the elements which for the mo- 
ment it does not choose to consider. In other terms, 
the image approaches reality as exactly as possible ; 
while abstraction, on the contrary, withdraws from it. 
Hence the divorce which separates poetical minds from 
scientific minds. 

The first are inclined to represent objects integrally, 
and to omit nothing which makes particular things sin- 
gular ; while the last, on the contrary, are disposed to 
think only pure ideas, disengaged from the complexity 
of sense-elements. 

180. Different Degrees of Abstraction. — Abstraction 
may consider either substance apart from its qualities, 
as the soul, the living being ; or qualities apart from 
substance, as intelligence, sensibility, and will (functions 
of the soul), or respiration, digestion, and circulation 
(functions of the living being) ; or the relation which 
exists among different qualities, as greatness, smallness, 
power, weakness, etc. 

181. Relations between Abstraction and Generalization. 
— Though abstraction and generalization, being two 
distinct operations, are not to be confounded, yet their 
results, the ideas which are derived from them, are the 
same. In fact, the abstract idea and the general idea 
are the same thinsr. 



170 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Some philosophers, it is true, assert that there are 
particular abstractions. 

"It seems therefore," says Reid, "that we cannot 
generalize without some degree of abstraction, but I 
apprehend we may abstract without generalizing ; for 
what hinders me from attending to the whiteness of the 
paper before me, without applying that color to any other 
object? The whiteness of this individual object is an 
abstract conception, but not a general one, while applied 
to one individual only." 

It is certain that, by means of the senses, which are 
the natural instruments of analysis, we are able to per- 
ceive in objects their isolated qualities exclusively, as 
form and color, for example, apart from resistance, odor, 
and savor ; it is certain, also, that through the attention, 
we may consider the form of a book, apart from its 
color. But these perceptions, these exclusive reflec- 
tions, are not, properly speaking, abstractions. In 
reality, the proper operation of abstraction begins 
only when the idea of a single quality, distinguished in 
a complex whole, is associated with the idea of an 
analogous quality observed in an object of the same 
class ; when, in a word, the idea tends to become 
general. 

There is therefore no occasion for distinguishing 
abstract ideas from general ideas. Whatever can be 
said of one is equally applicable to the others. 

182. General Ideas and Language. — The question 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 171 

may be asked, whether, without the use of words, the 
human mind can have general ideas. According to a 
considerable number of philosophers called nominalists* 
words are absolutely necessary for conceiving generali- 
ties ; general ideas are but common nouns, — labels 
placed on a collection of objects. Properly speaking, 
the mind is not capable of thinking the general. 

"A general and abstract idea," says Taine, "is a 
noun, nothing but a noun, the significant and under- 
stood name of a series of similar facts, or of a class of 
similar individuals, ordinarily accompanied by the sen- 
sible but vague representation of some one of these 
facts or individuals." ^ 

This is a false and arbitrary opinion. Doubtless 
words are necessary for fixing the general idea, for 
preserving the recollection of it, and for permitting its 
easy handling ; but they are not indispensable in order 
that the general idea may dawn upon the mind. 

It would be impossible to understand how we attrib- 
ute a meaning to general words, if we had not in some 
degree the power to think the general idea before using 
general terms. 

This has been forcibly expressed by the Scotch phi- 
losopher Hamilton, in the following passage : 

" The concept thus formed by an abstraction of the 
resembling from the non-resembling qualities of objects, 
would again pass back into the confusion and infinitude 

• Taine, De I'lniclhgetice, t. ii. p. 241. 



172 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

from which it has been called out, were it not rendered 
permanent for consciousness by being fixed and rati- 
fied in a verbal sign. A sign is necessary, to give 
stability to our intellectual progress, — to establish each 
step in our advance as a new starting-point for our 
advance to another beyond. 

" A country may be overrun by an armed host, but it 
is only conquered by the establishment of fortresses. 
Words are the fortresses of thought. They enable us 
to realize our dominion over what we have already 
overrun in thought ; to make every intellectual conquest 
the basis of operations for others still beyond. Or 
another illustration : You have all heard of the process 
of tunnelling through a sand-bank. In this operation 
it is impossible to succeed, unless every foot, nay, 
almost every inch, in our progress, be secured by an 
arch of masonry, before we attempt the excavation of 
another. Now, language is to the mind precisely what 
the arch is to the tunnel. Admitting that even the 
mind is capable of certain elementary concepts without 
the fixation and signature of language, still these are 
but sparks which would twinkle only to expire." ^ 

It is impossible to characterize more clearly the 
relations between a general idea and the word which 
expresses it. 

The intelligence doubtless advances without the 
assistance of words, and grasps the analogies, resem- 

1 Sir William Hamilton's Lectures^ p. 97. 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 173 

blances, and relations of things ; but this inner opera- 
tion would take place to no purpose, it would be fugitive 
and perishable, if words did not come to its aid. Our 
mind is so made that it always has need of a sensible 
support. When we perceive natural or particular 
objects, it is the thing itself which is represented to 
our mind; but when we conceive the relations of 
objects by a purely mental process, our intelligence 
needs the support of a word or of a sensible sign. In 
other terms, in the process of abstraction and general- 
ization, words play the same part as the images of par- 
ticular objects do in the development of perception and 
memory. 

183. How the Child generalizes. — Whatever may be 
said to the contrary, the child is inclined to generaliza- 
tion. In another place ^ we have quoted examples of this 
natural disposition which leads him to generalize ac- 
cording to analogies, sometimes the vaguest and the 
most superficial, and also to grasp the real relations of 
objects. Here are some facts which confirm our con- 
clusions on this subject : — 

''The son of a learned grammarian, aged five and 
one-half years, said to his father : 'There are certainly 
feminine verbs ! ' ' How is that ? ' said his father. ' To 
lay is a feminine verb, for we always say she lays, and 
never he lays.' "2 

''A child says ona, otta, with reference to a house- 

1 See Compayre, Lectures on Pedagogy^ ch. viii. 

2 Egger, tf/. f?A, p. 51. 



174 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

dog : and a little time after he says oua, oua, with refer- 
ence to poodles, pug-dogs, and Newfoundlands." 

" A child, having learned the words good boy, always 
put them together ; and when he wished to express the 
idea good cozv, he said good boy cozvT ^ 

The child, then, is unskilful in the use of general 
terms, but he does succeed in reaching beyond and 
dominating particular and individual perceptions, in 
order to grasp their resemblances and relations. 

184. Value of General Ideas. — Philosophers have 
spent much time in discussing the value of general 
ideas ; that is to say, the nature of the realities which 
they represent. The nominalists, as we have already 
remarked, affirm that, being but words or nouns, they 
represent nothing. On the contrary, others believe 
that to each general idea there corresponds, independ- 
ently of ourselves, a distinct reality, a substantial entity. 
In the Middle Age these were called realists. In their 
opinion, general ideas, which they call universals, are 
the only ones which really exist ; while the jwininalists 
maintain that there is no real existence apart from indi- 
vidual things. For the realists, humanity per se, or the 
ideal type of which men are but the successive copies, 
somewhere exists. For the nominalists, there are only 
men, with their proper individualities, and a name which 
represents them all. 

It is difficult to conceive to-day how in the Middle 

1 Taine, op. cit., p. 250. 



AI^STRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 175 

Age there could flourish and be maintained, in opposition 
to each other, two theses so arbitrary and so equally 
false in their contrary exaggeration. Realism is no 
longer anything more than a historical curiosity which 
no one maintains, and it is a proper source of astonish- 
ment that nominalism still has its defenders. The 
truth is, that a general idea simply represents the rela- 
tions of objects, or the resemblances common to a larger 
or smaller number of individuals. This mean and inter- 
mediate opinion has been maintained since the Middle 
Age under the name of concepttcalism.^ 

185. Simplicity and Clearness of Abstract and General 
Ideas. — It is wrong to consider the abstract idea as 
something confused and obscure. On the contrary, the 
abstract idea, considered in itself, is the simplest and 
clearest of all ideas. It consists, in reality, in disre- 
garding all accessory circumstances, all that is complex 
and cumbersome in real perceptions, in order to con- 
sider but one single attribute, one single characteristic 
of natural objects. 

" If with the intent to frighten us," said Laromiguiere, 
*' one were to propose to us an abstract question, very 
abstract, we would say, so much the better ; it would 
be all the simpler, all the easier ! How have we come 
to believe in the difficulty of abstract ideas .-* What is 
abstract is simple, and what is simple must be easy." 

But if abstract and general ideas are, absolutely and 
in themselves, the simplest of all ideas, they are none 



176 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the less the most exalted, the highest, and consequently 
those which the mind has the greatest difficulty in 
grasping and handling. The summit of mountains is 
. surely the spot where man breathes the best and the 
easiest ; but before experiencing this sensation of a free 
and pure air, we must have scaled ascents and climbed 
rocks. And so, in order to reach abstract and general 
ideas, we must have passed through a long evolution of 
intelligence, we must have traversed a great number of 
intermediate stages. Hence arises the child's repug- 
nance for abstractions, if he has not been prepared to 
comprehend them ; if his mind has not followed the 
routes which lead to these final conceptions of human 
thought. 

186. Importance of General Ideas. — It is useless to 
insist on the importance of general ideas. Every one 
knows that they are one of the essential conditions of 
the human mind and of the exercise of thought. Aris- 
totle said, "There is no science of the particular." 
Science is made only of general ideas. Reduced and 
limited to its particular perceptions, the human intelli- 
gence would scarcely differ from the intelligence of the 
lower animals. If particular ideas were not collected 
and grouped into categories by the act of generalization, 
they would resemble the disbanded soldiers of an army 
without a chief. Without general ideas, reasoning 
would be impossible ; for of the two forms of reason- 
ing, one, induction, terminates in general ideas ; while 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION 177 

the other, deduction, bases itself on generalizations 
already accepted by the mind, in order to rise to other 
generalizations. 

187. Dangers of Abstract and General Ideas. — It is 
nevertheless true that general and abstract ideas may 
lead the mind astray. By a natural tendency of our 
intelligence, we are inclined to conceive the existence 
of a distinct and real object back of each word of our 
language, and back of each abstraction of our thought. 
We readily realize our abstractions ; that is to say, we 
easily believe in the existence of an individual thing 
corresponding to each of our thoughts. Hence the 
fables of ancient mythology, which believes in as many 
Muses as there are different arts ; hence the illusions of 
the schoolmen, who believed in the existence of human- 
ity per sc, who multiplied entities and substances, and 
back of each series of particular objects, back of each 
abstract quality, saw an occult virtue. But this danger 
is disappearing more and more with the progress of the 
scientific spirit and the positive interpretation of nature. 



SUMMARY. 

96. The functions of acquisition or experience, the 
SENSES and the CONSCIOUSNESS, bring us only PAR- 
TICULAR IDEAS relative to individual objects. 

97. It is the functions of elaboration which permit us to 
disengage from several particular perceptions analogous or 



i^S ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

similar elements, and from these elements, by means of asso- 
ciation, to form GENERAL IDEAS. 

98. GENERALIZATION is the operation which arranges 
in categories or classes, either the qualities common to 
several individuals, or several individuals which have com- 
mon qualities. 

gg. ABSTRACTION is the condition of generalization. 
It permits us to decompose complex perceptions in order 
to consider apart such or such a quality of objects, by pro- 
visionally eliminating from thought all the other qualities. 

100. This quality in an object having once been considered 
independently, we recognize by comparison an analogous or 
similar quality in other objects, and we thus form a general 
idea. 

101. A GENERAL IDEA has more or less EXTENSION 
and comprehension. Extension is the number of indi- 
viduals to which it relates; and COMPREHENSION the 
number of common qualities which it represents. 

102. Abstraction is distinct from ATTENTION; and is in 
absolute opposition to the IMAGINATION. 

103. Every abstract idea tends to become a general idea ; 
every general idea is abstract. 

104. General terms are necessary, if not to form the gen- 
eral ideas which precede them, which pre-exist, at least to fix 
them in the memory and to give them a more precise form. 

105. The NOMINALISTS are wrong in holding that gen- 
eral ideas are but names ; and the REALISTS are deceived 



ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION i;^ 

when they admit the existence of a distinct entity corre- 
sponding to each general idea. The truth is that general 
ideas represent the relations of things. 

io6. Very clear and very simple in themselves, general 
ideas are difficult for every mind that has not traversed the 
intermediate stages which lead to them. 

107. There is no science without general ideas; GEN- 
ERALIZATION is the condition of scientific procedure. 

108. General ideas may lead us astray, if we realize them 
apart from our mind. 



l80 ELEMENTS OF PSVCHOLOGV 



CHAPTER XI 

JUDGMENT AND REASONING 

188. Different Senses of the "Word Judgment. — In ordi- 
nary language, judgment is almost always synonymous 
with accuracy of mind. To say of some one that he is 
a man of judgment, is to affirm that he has good sense, 
that he easily distinguishes the true from the false. 

"Judgment," says Kant, "is the distinctive charac- 
teristic of what is called good sense, and the lack of 
good sense is a defect which no study can repair. We 
may indeed offer to a man's understanding a supply of 
rules, and graft upon it, in some degree, that foreign 
knowledge ; but the pupil must already possess for him- 
self the faculty of using it correctly. A doctor, a 
judge, a publicist, may have in their heads many patho- 
logical, judicial, and political rules, and yet fail in 
the application of them, because they have not been 
trained to that sort of judgments by examples and real 
affairs." 

In this sense, judgment supposes not only a natural 
rectitude of mind, but also the exercise of reason. It 
is an aggregate of intellectual qualities, the most pre- 
cious of all perhaps, since they constitute upright and 



JUDGMENT AND REASONING l8l 

accurate minds, — qualities which the education of the 
intelligence ought particularly to propose for an end. 

But the signification of the word judgment, in psy- 
chology, is very different. To the psychologist, judg- 
ment is synonymous with affirmation ; it is the act by 
which the mind affirms this or that. The grossest error 
is a judgment, and minds most addicted to falsehood 
judge as much, if not as well, as sound minds. 

189. Judgment and Proposition. — Judgment may there- 
fore be defined : an intellectual operation by zvJiicJi the 
mind affirms, either the exist enee of an object, or the re- 
lations of tzvo ideas. The verbal expression of a judg- 
ment is the proposition, and so deductive reasoning is 
an intellectual operation, and its verbal expression is 
the syllogism, that is to say, a series of three proposi- 
tions. 

In every proposition there are three terms, the sub- 
ject, the verb, and the predicate. The subject is the 
person or thing spoken of ; the predicate is the quality 
which limits the subject ; the verb is a copulative word 
which unites the subject and the predicate. 

And so in every judgment there are three elements : 
the idea of the object (person or thing) which we qual- 
ify ; the idea of the quality which we attribute to that 
object; and the act of affirmation by which the mind 
declares that the quality belongs or does not belong to 
the object. 

190. Judgment the Essential Act of the Mind. — We 



l82 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

have already shown (Chapter IV.) that judgment is the 
essential operation of the intelligence. As Rousseau 
has said, ''The distinctive faculty of an intelligent 
being is the power to give a meaning to the little word 
isr 

In fact, the verb to be is the YQxh par excellence ; in a 
sense, the unique verb. The other verbs, the predicate 
verbs, are but the fusion into a single word, (i) of an 
idea, as the idea of some act or state, and (2) of the 
verb to be, expressing the affirmation. 

191. Different Kinds of Judgments. — Judgment, then, 
is not a special function of the intelligence. In reality, 
every act of the intelligence terminates in a judgment. 
To perceive, to imagine, to conceive, to recall, to reason, 
all this is to think, and at the same time to judge. 

Consequently, there are different species of judg- 
ments. We might enumerate as many kinds of judg- 
ments as there are functions of the intelligence ; and 
in this sense we might distinguish the judgments of 
conscience, the judgments of the senses, those of the 
memory, of the imagination, and of the reason. 

But, from whatever intellectual source they proceed, 
judgments present, in the form of the propositions which 
express them, differences which permit us to distribute 
them into a certain number of categories. 

192. Affirmative Judgments and Negative Judgments. — 
With respect to quality, judgments are ordinarily dis- 
tinguished as affirmative or negative, according as the 



JUDGMENT AND REASONING 1 83 

propositions which interpret them show the agreement 
or disagreement of two ideas. But negative judgments 
are such only in form ; in reahty, they always include 
an affirmation, — the affirmation that the subject and 
the predicate do not agree with each other. 

193. General Judgments and Particular Judgments. — 
With respect to qiiantity, judgments may be particular 
or general. General judgments are judgments which 
have for subject a word which designates an entire 
class of beings or objects : " All men are mortal " — " all 
bodies are extended." The subjects of particular judg- 
ments, on the contrary, are applicable to only a portion 
of the class of the beings or things under consideration : 
" Some men are liars " — "some bodies are luminous." 
From this point of view, we might also distinguish 
individical judgments, which are applicable only to a 
single individual. 

The distinctions just indicated are /(?r;;^^/ distinctions, 
derived from the form of the propositions. 

Other distinctions of more importance proceed from 
the intrinsic characteristics of judgments. 

194. Primitive Judgments and Derivative Judgments. — 
Judgments may be distributed into two classes, accord- 
ing as they result immediately from the functions of 
acquisition or intuitive perception ; or as they proceed 
from a reflective comparison of two ideas previously 
acquired. The first are primitive, and the last deriva- 
tive judgments. 



I 84 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

"As I am speaking, the sun shines," ''the snow is 
falling," ''it thunders." These are primitive or imme- 
diate judgments. 

"The sun is immovable," "snow is frozen water," 
"thunder is an electrical phenomenon." These are 
derivative judgments. 

The old psychology restricted the term judgments to 
derivative judgments. Every judgment, it affirmed, 
supposes a reflective comparison between two ideas 
previously acquired. It is now generally admitted that, 
from their earliest manifestation, the senses and the 
consciousness give rise to real judgments which consist 
at least in affirming the existence of an object or of a 
phenomenon. 

195. Judgment and Belief. — In its affirmations, the 
judgment is determined from evidence, that is to say, 
from a clear and exact perception of an object or of the 
relation of one object to another. 

The judgment, moreover, is sometimes true and 
sometimes false. Error, like truth, is a judgment. 
Judgment is therefore the same thing as belief. Be- 
lieving, judging, and thinking, are synonymous terms. 

196. Definition of Reasoning. — Reasoning, like judg- 
ment, is a distinct operation of the mind, an intellect- 
ual act irreducible to any other. In the activity of the 
intelligence there are three stages, three essential 
moments : conceiving or having ideas ; judging or asso- 
ciating conceptions ; reasoning or connecting judgments. 



JUDGMENT AND REASONING 185 

Just as judgment is the assemblage of two ideas united 
by an act of affirmation expressed by the verb to be, — 
so reasoning is a series or combination of judgments 
brought together in such a way that the latter seems 
like the legitimate conclusion and necessary conse- 
quence of the former. 

197. Conditions of Reasoning. — Reasoning, therefore, 
involves three previous and distinct operations. It sup- 
poses (i) a clear conception of the ideas which are to 
be the material of the process; (2) in the previous judg- 
ments an affirmation of already known relations between 
these ideas ; (3) an attentive comparison of these affir- 
mations themselves, one with another. 

The proper act of reasoning will consist in deriving 
from this comparison a new judgment implicitly con- 
tained in the preceding judgments ; and for this purpose 
the reasoning is based on principles derived from the 
reason. (See Chapter XII.) 

198. Verbal Expression of Reasoning. — We have 
already remarked that just as the judgment finds its 
verbal expression in a proposition, so reasoning, rigor- 
ously expressed, gives rise to the syllogism, that is to 
say, to an argument constructed of three propositions. 
God is perfect ; goodness is a perfection ; God is tJierefore 
good. In every syllogism, as in the one taken for an 
example, there are three ideas : God, goodness, perfection. 
One of these ideas serves as an intermediate term, or 
term of comparison between the other two ; in the 



1 86 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

above example it is the idea of perfection. This is 
called the middle term. With this idea of perfection 
we compare one after another the two other ideas, which 
we call the major and the minor term, God and good- 
ness ; and after having assured ourselves from an ex- 
amination of these two primary judgments, called 
premises, that there is agreement or accord between 
the idea of perfection and each of the other two, we 
affirm, in the conclusion, that there is also agreement 
or accord between the idea of God and the idea of 
goodness. 

In a word, we apply to the comparison of ideas the 
mathematical axiom which says, " If each of two quan- 
tities is equal to a third, they are equal to each other." 
Without entering into further details, and without at- 
tempting to expound the complicated theory of the syllo- 
gism, let us add that each of the two premises has a 
special name ; the one containing the major term is 
called the major premise, and the one containing the 
minor term, the minor premise. 

199. Reasoning and the Syllogism. — The syllogism, 
therefore, is not the same thing as reasoning. We 
must be careful not to confound the inner act of the mind 
which judges and reasons, with the verbal translation 
which it gives to it in language. 

All reasonings, however, do not allow themselves to 
be expressed in a form as simple and concise as the 
syllogistic argument. In most cases of reasoning the 



JUDGMENT AND REASONING 187. 

premises are far more complicated than in elementary 
syllogisms like the one we have quoted. Usually there 
are several minors, and consequently the comparison of 
the premises is delicate and difficult. The mind comes 
to the conclusion only at the expense of a great effort 
of attention. 

On the other hand, it is rare that the thinker who 
reasons, even the most rigorously, imposes on his rea- 
soning the syllogistic form. In conversation, in dis- 
course, and in books, we rarely use the syllogism, which, 
on the score of clearness and precision, cannot atone 
for what is heavy and pedantic in it. But even in scien- 
tific treatises, writers have long since renounced the 
syllogistic forms which the theologians of the Middle 
Age had attempted to bring into vogue. There is no 
occasion, therefore, to give excessive attention to the 
intricate rules of the syllogism. The minute and pro- 
found study made of it by the logicians may interest 
those who would make an exhaustive study of the play 
and mechanism of reasoning ; but it is more curious 
than useful, and, practically, it can hardly presume to 
develop the art of reasoning. 

200. Induction and Deduction. — What is more impor- 
tant is to inquire, whether, in reality, there are one or 
more distinct forms of reasoning. 

All psychologists and logicians distinguish induction 
from dednctio7t. 

Induction rises from particular truths to general 



1 88 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

truths, from fact to law ; deduction, on the contrary, 
descends from general truths to particular truths, from 
principle to consequence. Or, rather, induction pro- 
ceeds from a part to the whole, from the less to the 
o:reater. Deduction follows an inverse order. To 
deduce is to exchange a piece of gold for the smaller 
pieces which represent its value ; induction is an opera- 
tion of greater difficulty, and at first sight inadmissible 
and impracticable ; for it consists in realizing with a 
few silver pieces of lesser value a gold coin of great 
value. 

201. Induction and Deduction in the Sciences. — Let 
us explain still further the difference between inductive 
reasoning and deductive reasoning. We shall thence 
discover whether the difference is as real as it appears. 

In the sciences of observation and experiment, induc- 
tion is the universal rule. When the facts have all 
been observed and established, we generalize. We 
affirm that heat will always and everywhere expand the 
bodies subjected to its influence ; that a stone free to 
move under the action of gravitation will fall at all times 
and in all places. From a simple observation, some- 
times from a single one, but more often repeated several 
times, we pass to a universal affirmation. 

In the abstract and exact sciences, deduction is 
almost exclusively employed. Starting from acknowl- 
edged axioms and definitions, we search for their conse- 
quences. From the definition of a triangle or a circle. 



JUDGMENT AND REASONING 1 89 

by the aid of certain axioms, we derive a series of 
tlieorems. Here the process of reasoning is manifestly 
legitimate, for it consists simply in bringing to light the 
truths contained in principles already admitted. 

202. Induction brought back to Deduction. — Though 
the two forms of reasoning seem to provoke the mind 
to two opposite movements, the logical process is 
essentially the same in both cases. 

In reality, in every deduction there is an unexpressed 
general truth, the common major term of all inductive 
reasoning. This is the rational belief in the order, 
constancy, and uniformity in the succession of phenom- 
ena. When the physicist, after having seen two or 
three kinds of matter expand under the influence of 
heat, confidently declares that all bodies placed under 
the same influence will undergo the same modifications, 
it seems at first sight that the sole ground of his induc- 
tion is the short series of facts which he has observed. 
But this is far from being true. That which really 
authorizes the scientist to accept the general, the uni- 
versal law which he has established, is the principle 
previously stated, namely, the uniformity of nature. 

In other terms, all inductive reasoning may be 
brought back to a syllogism in the following form : 
The same causes produce the same effects (major) ; I 
have proved in three cases that the phenomenon A 
was the cause of phenomenon B (minor) ; hence, always 
and everywhere, A will have B for its effect. 



IQO ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

203. Differences which Persist. — Induction and de- 
duction, then, are but two manifestations, two different 
forms of the same logical operation. This, however, is 
not a reason for forgetting that each process has its own 
special rules and laws which are studied in the two 
fundamental divisions of all logic, inductive logic and 
deductive logic. 

204. Rules for Induction. — For induction, it is first 
necessary to be assured, by exact observations and skil- 
ful and repeated experiments, that we do not confound 
the accidental coincidence of two phenomena with their 
constant relation. 

205. Rules for Deduction. — For deduction, we must 
be careful to admit only clear and exact definitions, and 
principles which are either self-evident truths, that is to 
say, axioms, or inductive laws scrupulously verified. 

206. Importance of Reasoning. — When we know the 
nature and different forms of reasoning, it is easy to 
comprehend the importance of this intellectual opera- 
tion. Without reasoning, human knowledge would be 
confined within the narrow circle of the immediate 
intuitions of the reason and of the direct perceptions of 
experience. Human intelligence would be forbidden 
to pass beyond the limited horizon of the senses, and to 
conceive the general laws which constitute science, and 
by which the mind embraces the entire universe. 

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten 'that we 
may make an abuse of reasoning ; that too much logic 



JUDGMENT AND REASONING I9I 

leads us astray and deceives us ; and, finally, that it is 
sometimes true to say of the human mind what Moliere 
said of the house of the Learned Ladies : " that reason- 
ing banishes reason from it." 

Excess in the use of deductive logic especially, and 
excessive ai^plication of reasoning to any and every 
subject, may, from consequence to consequence, lead 
us on to conclusions which, though regularly deduced, 
are nevertheless contrary to our interests and needs, 
and in opposition with facts. 

SUMMARY. 

109. JUDGMENT, in the psychological sense, is the in- 
tellectual operation which consists in AFFIRMING the 
existence of an object, or the relation of two ideas. 

no. The verbal expression of a judgment is the PROPO- 
SITION. It consequently consists of three elements, repre- 
sented by the SUBJECT, the PREDICATE, and the VERB 
which joins the predicate to the subject. 

111. The act of judgment is expressed by the verb TO BE. 

112. Judgment is the essential operation of the mind. 

113. According to the propositions which express them, 
JUDGMENTS may be distributed into several categories, 
as AFFIRMATIVE or NEGATIVE, GENERAL, PARTICU- 
LAR, or INDIVIDUAL. 

114. Considered in their origin, judgments are either 
PRIMITIVE, — those which result immediately from the 
faculty of perception, — or DERIVATIVE, — those which 
come from a previous comparison of two ideas. 



192 ELEiMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

115. REASONING is also an intellectual operation irre- 
ducible to any other, and consists in grasping the relation of 
two or more judgments. 

116. The verbal expression of reasoning is the SYLLO- 
GISM. It conijDrises three propositions : the first two are 
called PREMISES, and the last is called the CONCLU- 
SION, or the consequence of the other two. 

117. Reasoning presents itself under two forms, INDUC- 
TION and DEDUCTION. 

118. INDUCTION consists in passing from fact to law, 
from particular truths to general truths. DEDUCTION 
follows the inverse movement, and descends from principle 
to consequence, from general truths to particular truths. 

119. Induction may nevertheless be brought back to 
deduction ; for all inductive reasoning supposes, as an un- 
expressed major premise, this rational truth: "The same 
causes produce the same effects." 

120. REASONING is one of the essential conditions of 
the development of the intelligence, which without it would 
remain confined within the narrow circle of immediate 
experience. 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS I9 



CHAPTER XII 

THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 

207. The Reason and the Other Functions of the Intel- 
ligence. — When we have enumerated the different 
functions of acquisition from which the mind is nurt- 
ured, and the different functions of elaboration which 
are the derived channels through which the reflective 
effort of the mind conducts the thought, there still 
remains something else to be explained in the intelli- 
gence ; there remains a residuum which can be ac- 
counted for neither by the faculties of experience nor 
by the faculties of combination, — a substratum of 
ideas and truths which an analysis of the ideas and 
judgments furnished by the other faculties does not 
succeed in reaching, and which is precisely what philos- 
ophers call the reasoji. 

208. Different Senses of the Word Reason. — At the 
first glance, we are surprised at the diversity of mean- 
ings which language seems to give to the word reason. 
Thus, in certain cases, reason simply signifies the sound 
state of the mind as distins-uished from unreason or 
madness, as when we say of a madman, he has lost his 
reason. In other cases, we mean by reason, accuracy 



194 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of judgment or sobriety of views : tJiis oratoi' speaks rea- 
sonably ; this doctrine is full of reason. Again, reason 
is the opposite of instinct ; it is the reflective activity 
of man, as distinguished from the instinctive activity 
of the animal : animals are deprived of 7'eason. 

Finally, and it is in this sense that we here employ 
the term, reason is the word which designates the high- 
est of the intellectual faculties, that which reveals to 
us universal, necessary, and absolute ideas. In this 
sense, it is opposed to experience, that is, to the senses 
and the consciousness. The idea of color is derived fvm 
the sense of sight ; the idea of self conies from conscious- 
ness ; the idea of the good, and the idea of the infinite, 
have their source in the reason. 

209. Reduction of the Different Senses. — If, however, 
we reflect on the subject carefully, we shall be con- 
vinced that this diversity of significations is more 
apparent than real, and at bottom we everywhere find 
the same reason, differently modified. 

In fact, the reason is an aggregate of notions and 
affirmations, of ideas and judgments, of conceptions and 
principles, which preside over the intellectual develop- 
ment of man. It is because it obeys these principles 
that the mind moves forward correctly, normally, and 
that it escapes madness and folly. It is also because it 
supports itself on these principles, that the mind is 
capable of directing its ideas and of governing its in- 
tellectual conduct. 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AM) FIRST TRUTHS 195 

It is then always the same reason which, in man, is 
opposed to the aberrations of mental alienation, or to 
false judgments, or to the irreflective impulses of 
instinct. 

210. Reason in the Child. — It would be wrong to 
regard the reason as a faculty peculiar to mature age, 
whose appearance is tardy in the evolution of the mind. 
The infant already possesses and often manifests the 
tendencies of that reason which is common to all 
men, which lightens every intelligence coming into the 
world. When a child demands the how and why of 
things, he obeys the instinct of a reasonable being who 
wishes to know the causes of all he sees. Doubtless he 
will be incapable of formulating the principle of causa- 
tion, and will even understand but little about it, if you 
explain it to him. But without knowing it, by an im- 
pulse still unconscious and instinctive, he is ever apply- 
ing the principle of causality. 

And so the primary notion of space imposes itself on 
his conceptions. 

"One of my sons," says Egger, "seven years of age, 
was one day looking with me for an object which he 
had lost. As we did not succeed in finding it, he said 
to me : ' Something must always be somewhere.' 
Under a very artless, but still a very clear form, this is 
the idea that all matter occupies a place in space. I 
had certainly never attempted to teach him this. The 
general formula was disengaged all by itself and with- 



196 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

out any special effort, as far as I could see, from the 
observation of a particular fact." ^ 

Here is another example, borrowed from the same 
author : — 

"Felix, aged seven years and nine months, asks his 
mother : ' Before the world what was there ? ' ' God, 
who created it.' ' And before God.?' 'Nothing.' To 
which the child replies : ' There must have been a 
place where God is.' " ^ 

211. The Conscious Reason. — At first latent and con- 
fused, the reason in the adult and in the man becomes 
conscious of itself. Through reflection it analyzes 
itself and succeeds in formulating clearly the laws 
which govern the mind. "We must distinguish," says 
Leibnitz, "between the abstract and formal expression 
of the principles of reason, and the real possession of 
these principles under a confused and obscure form." 

The laws of the reason have received different names 
from philosophers. They have been called, in turn, 
common and universal notions, innate ideas, first truths, 
necessary truths, truths a priori, categories of the 
intelligence, constituent and regulative principles of 
the intelligence, etc. We prefer to adopt the expres- 
sion, notions and first truths. 

212. Notions and First Truths. — The notions and 
truths which are derived from the reason are called 

1 Egger, Observations sur le developpement de Pintelligence chez les ettfants, 
p. 65. 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 



197 



first, because they are the very conditions of all intel- 
lectual activity, and the principles which make possible 
all the operations of thought. '' Logically," says Leib- 
nitz, ''particular truths depend on more general truths 
of which they are but the examples," Doubtless they 
do not appear first chronologically ; for it is experi- 
ence which provokes them to appear and to disengage 
themselves. But nevertheless they exist previous to 
experience. They are the natural data of the mind, 
logically prior to the data of the senses and of 
consciousness. 

213. Distinction between Notions and First Truths. — 
Notions are simply ideas : truths are judgments. But 
the distinction is more apparent than real ; for first 
ideas are almost necessarily accompanied by belief. 
We cannot think of causality, that is, of the necessary 
dependence of events, without affirming that it exists ; 
nor of substance, that is, of the permanent basis of 
things, without believing that there is substance. 

214. Characteristics of First Truths. 

I. First truths are tiniversal. This universality is to 
be understood in two senses. First truths exist in all 
intelligences, and at the same time they are applicable 
to all existences. They are common to all minds, and 
it is of them that Descartes intended to speak when he 
said that good sense is the thing of all others the most 
widely distributed. They are in the mind, said Leib- 
nitz, what the muscles and tendons are in the body. 



198 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

On the other hand, universal truths, at the same time 
that they govern all intelligences, have their applica- 
tion everywhere and always. It is not merely of actual 
facts, the facts which are taking place to-day or that 
will take place to-morrow, that we assert that they have 
a cause ; but of every event whatever it may be, — 
whenever and however it may take place. 

2. In the second place, first truths are necessary. 
We not only affirm that every phenomenon has a cause, 
but it is impossible for us to conceive the contrary. It 
is not necessary that the death of a man have' any de- 
terminate cause, as illness, murder, or suicide, but it 
is necessary that it have a cause. 

''We not only judge in this way in all cases, natur- 
ally and by the instinctive force of our understanding ; 
but try to judge otherwise, and, in the case of a given 
phenomenon, try not to suppose a cause for it. You 
cannot do it. The principle of causality is not only 
universal, but it is necessary." ^ 

3. In the third place, first truths are self-evide7it. 
We cannot demonstrate first truths ; they cannot be 
connected with previous principles, since they are 
themselves first principles, the conditions and bases of 
all demonstrations. 

" None of these things," says Pascal, " can be demon- 
strated ; but the cause which makes them incapable 
of demonstration is not their obscurity, but, on the 

1 Victor Cousin, Cours de Phistoire de la philosophies t. iii., p. 154. 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 199 

contrary, their extreme evidence ; this lack of proof is 
not a defect but rather a perfection." 

And Pascal concludes that, " in axioms we must look 
only for things which are perfectly self-evident." But 
we must avoid counting among axioms or first truths, 
truths which are doubtless rational, but which can be 
demonstrated. Thus, Leibnitz has observed that it is 
wrong to consider as an axiom the truth that tzvo and 
tzvo make four, since it can be demonstrated by defining 
the numbers two, three, and four. 

215. Enumeration of First Truths. — Without pretend- 
ing to give in this place a complete enumeration and a 
definitive classification of the essential elements of the 
reason, we ought to indicate the principal ones, and at 
the same time denote their place and functions in intel- 
lectual activity. 

- But it is necessary to make a preliminary distinction, 
that between the practical reason and the pure reason. 

216. The Practical Reason. — In fact we must sharply 
distinguish between the rational principles relative to 
practice and to moral conduct, which Kant calls the 
practical reason, from the rational principles relative to 
pure science and to theoretic speculation, which he 
calls the/?/r^ i-eason. 

The practical reason is nothing more than the 
aggregate of notions and affirmations commonly desig- 
nated by the term, moral consciousness. That there is a 
natural and absolute difference between right and 



200 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

wrong ; that there is a necessary obligation to do what 
is right, or, in other terms, that there is such a thing 
as duty ; and, finally, that he who does right deserves 
esteem, and that he who does wrong forfeits esteem, — 
these are about the contents of the practical reason ; 
these are the foundations of ethics.^ 

217. The Pure Reason. — The pure reason is that 
which regulates the exercise of our speculative faculties, 
which governs and determines our scientific researches. 
It is the pure reason also which leads us on, as to a 
court of last appeal, to the idea of an ideal, perfect, and 
absolute being, God. 

Here again it is necessary to make a distinction: 
namely, between first truths which regulate thought in 
its relations with objects, and first truths which concern 
thought only in its relations with itself. 

I. On the one hand, thought in itself obeys certain 
laws of its own, certain logical axioms without which 
it could not come to an understanding with itself. These 
principles are : (i) The principle of identity^ which is 
equivalent to saying, "What is is." This is the princi- 
ple which the Greek sophists called in question when 
they claimed the right, on the same subject, to pass 
from affirmation to negation, and conversely. 

'' * How you go on, always talking in the same way, 
Socrates ! ' ' Yes, Callicles, and not only talking in 
the same way, but on the same subjects. . . . But I re- 

1 On this subject see Conipayre, Elements de Morale. 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 20I 

proach you with never saying the same about the same 
things, for at one time you were defining the better and 
the superior as the stronger, then again as the wiser, 
and now you bring forward a new notion.' Plato thus 
opposes the unity of true science, in which whatever 
is, is so always while the same reasons exist, to that 
multiple and changeable science of the sophists, which 
remains fixed neither in the substantial nor the intelli- 
gible." i 

(2) The principle of contradiction, which is derived 
from the principle of identity, and is stated as follows : 
A tiling is not different from itself. ^ 

"The principle of contradiction," says Cousin, "is 
the rock of all certitude. To destroy it is to destroy 
every principle, every judgment, every reasoning, every 
proposition, every perception of consciousness, every 
thought." 

2. On the other hand, without the reason, science 
would be but a barren accumulation of facts without 
connection and without laws, — of isolated experiences 
without cohesion. It is the reason alone which permits 
the scientist to establish necessary relations among 
phenomena. It makes provision for this task by three 
principles : the principle of causality, the principle of 
substance, and the principle of induction. These are 

1 A. Fouillee, Philosophie de Platon, t. ii., p. 37. 

2 It is usually expressed thus: "A thing cannot be and not be at the same time ; 
or, a thing must be or not be ; or, the same attribute cannot at the same time be af- 
firmed and denied of the same subject.'" — Vocab. of Phil. 



202 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

in some sense objective principles, since they are 
applicable to objects. 

218. Principle of Causality. — The principle of causal- 
ity may be formulated as follows : Whatever begins to 
exist has a caiise. 

In other terms, the human mind admits of no solu- 
tion of continuity in the successive order of phenomena. 
Whatever begins to exist must have its explanation, its 
principle, its raison d'etre. In its last analysis, scien- 
tific research has no other end than to determine the 
causes of facts. It is observation and experience which 
discover to us, in each given case, the particular cause 
which is at work ; but it is the reason which affirms in 
advance that there is a cause, whatever maybe its nature. 

219. Principle of Substance. — The principle of sub- 
Stance is stated as follows : Every quality supposes a sub- 
stance. Or, again : Everything zvJiicJi changes supposes 
something which endures, which does not change. 

220. Principle of Induction — The reason also imposes 
on us a law to believe in an immutable order in the uni- 
verse, in a necessary constancy in the relations observed 
among phenomena. 

This is what is called the principle of induction, and 
is formulated as follows : Uniformity of succession is the 
law of nature ; or : There is order in the universe ; or, 
again : TJie same causes produce the same effects. 

221. Other Principles — We might add other princi- 
ples to the list which we have just drawn up : for ex- 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 203 

ample, the principle of final causes, which is thus stated : 
Whatever happens has a purpose ; or : Nothing is pro- 
duced without a purpose. But this principle is neither 
universal nor necessary. In a great number of cases 
we do not believe that things have a purpose, an end. 
The uneven configuration of a mountain doubtless has 
an efficient cause ; but has it a purpose, a final cause ? 
Moreover, the principle of final causes is connected 
with a prior belief, with the belief in God, with the 
idea of providential design, or of an intelligent organ- 
izer of the world. It is not then a first truth, but 
merely a derivative truth. 

We may also connect with the reason the notions of 
space and time: Everybody is in space; Every event 
takes place in time. 

222,. The Infinite. — Finally, the office of the reason 
is not merely to regulate the acts of the moral life and 
to co-ordinate the experiments of scientific research. 
It is also the source of notions which constitute meta- 
physical science, the sum total of which permits us to 
conceive of the existence and nature of God. It aspires 
to something else than the direction of the intelli- 
gence in the real world. It introduces us into the ideal 
world, and makes us conceive, over and above the 
things which are contingent, relative, imperfect, tran- 
sient and finite, the necessary, absolute, perfect, eternal 
and infinite being who is the cause of causes, the prin- 
ciple of order in the universe, and the principle of 
good in the consciousness. 



204 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

223. Nature and Origin of the Reason. — The reason 
having once been defined, it remains to inquire if it is, 
as most philosophers believe, an absolutely original ele- 
ment of the intellectual constitution of man ; or, on the 
contrary, as some modern thinkers assert, either an ex- 
tract or an abstract of experience, or the result of 
heredity, — the slowly acquired product of the toil of 
the intelligence through the centuries. 

224. Empiricism. — We call enipiricisvi or sensualism 
the philosophical doctrine which explains first ideas by 
experience. According to the sensualists, the mind is 
at first but a tabula rasa, — a tablet whereon nothing is 
yet written ; the intelligence is absolutely void of the 
disposition or inclination to think in one way or in 
another. 

Experience, by way of abstraction, induction, and 
generalization, produces all our ideas ; and the charac- 
teristic of necessity and universality presented by first 
truths comes entirely from the constant repetition of 
the same experience. From having seen causes pro- 
duce effects, we come to affirm that every phenomenon 
has a cause. 

225. Idealism. — As opposed to empiricism, idealism, 
under different forms, believes in reason as a distinct 
faculty ; but the explanation which it gives is bad. Plato 
resorted to reminiscence. The soul had lived a prior life 
where it had seen first principles face to face ; the notions 
of the reason, consequently, are but recollections. 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 205 

Malebranche believes that through direct intuition we 
see rational truths in God. 

Finally, some other philosophers seem to believe that 
the principles of the reason are innate; 'Mike so many 
marks which God has imprinted on our soul," from 
which it would seem to follow that notions and first 
truths present themselves spontaneously to our mind 
without effort, without a preliminary evolution of the 
intelligence, and without any aid from experience. 

226. Modern Empiricism. — Modern philosophers, and 
especially those of the English school of which John 
Stuart Mill is chief, have revived sensualism by try- 
ing to explain first truths by the association of empiri- 
cal ideas. According to them, the necessity of the 
idea of cause, for example, is merely the result of con- 
stant association, ever verified by experience, of the 
succession of causes and effects. Besides, these phi- 
losophers invoke the action of heredity. The insepara- 
ble associations from which are derived the so-called 
first truths, are confirmed from century to century by 
the experience of successive generations, and are grad- 
ually transformed into hereditary habits. 

There is but one thing to say to this doctrine ; and 
this is, that experiences, however numerous and how- 
ever often they may be repeated, cannot be substituted 
for the universality and absolute necessity which are 
the characteristics of first truths. 

*' Experience," says Paul Janet, '* is very far from 



206 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

giving us an inseparable association of cause and effect. 
. . .How many phenomena there are whose antecedents 
we do not know! The number of cases in which we 
can demonstrate the causal relation is very small com- 
pared with the number of cases in which a demonstra- 
tion is impossible." ^ 

As to the effects of heredity, it is equally impossible 
to comprehend how an accumulation of experiences, 
even continued through several centuries, could trans- 
form contingent truths into necessary truths. The 
contingent, though added to the contingent forever, 
will never give the necessary. 

227. The True Solution. — The true solution is that of 
Leibnitz and of all the philosophers who admit the con- 
currence of experience with the native constitution of 
the intelligence. Experience does not bring us the 
notions and rational truths which infinitely surpass it, 
since it can make us comprehend only the things which 
are limited and contingent ; while the affirmations of 
the reason are universal and necessary. But if experi- 
ence is not the source of rational ideas, it is the occa- 
sion of their development ; it is experience which in 
some sense reveals them, and which causes them to 
issue from their latent condition. 

"Rational beliefs," as Rabier justly remarks, ''are 
born of the commerce of the spirit with things ; they 
are due neither to brute experience nor to pure spirit, 

1 Paul Janet, o/>. df., p. 217. 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 20/ 

but at once to experience and intelligence, — to an in- 
t ell igent empiricism. 

In other terms, the mind, as Leibnitz has said, con- 
tains within itself the principle of many notions and 
truths which are revealed by external objects. Doubt- 
less we cannot read in the soul the eternal laws of the 
reason at sight, as the edict of the Praetor * is read from 
the scroll, without the trouble of an examination ; but 
it is enough that we can discover them within us by the 
use of attention, with the data furnished by the senses. 

The ideas and truths of the reason are innate, like 
the inclinations, dispositions, habits, and all our natural 
potentialities ; like the concealed veins which leave a 
trace in a block of marble. 

It is in the same sense that Diderot said, in reply to 
the sensualist Helvetius : ''The soul of man is not in 
his senses, as that of the eagle is in his eye, or that of 
the dog at the end of his nose. Sensations are like the 
spark which sets on fire a barrel of alcohol but is ex- 
tinguished in a bucket of water. For thousands of 
centuries the dew of heaven has fallen upon rocks with- 
out making them fertile. The pick of the miner who 
digs in the mines of Golconda * does not produce the 
diamond which it unearths." 



208 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

SUMMARY. 

1 2 1. The faculties of acquisition, and the faculties of com- 
bination or elaboration, do not suffice to explain the whole of 
mind. 

122. The REASON, in its psychological sense, is the 
^gg^egate of notions and truths which are derived neither 
from experience nor from the combinations of experience. 

123. The reason, at first latent, confused, and obscure in 
the child, comes only little by little to formulate its princi- 
ples in a precise and conscious way. 

124. The reason comprises both NOTIONS and TRUTHS, 
th.at is, ideas and judgments. 

125. These are called FIRST TRUTHS or a priori truths, 
because they are the fundamental principles of the intelligence. 

126. First truths are UNIVERSAL and NECESSARY; 
universal, because they exist in all minds, are applicable to 
all objects ; and necessary, for the contrary of what they 
affirm is inconceivable and impossible. 

127. They are also SELF-EVIDENT. All demonstration 
is derived from them, but they themselves escape demon- 
stration. 

128. First truths either govern the moral conduct and es- 
tablish the absolute difference between good and evil, thus 
constituting the PRACTICAL REASON; or they are the 
guiding principles of scientific research, thus constituting the 
PURE REASON 



THE REASON; NOTIONS AND FIRST TRUTHS 



209 



129. The pure reason comprises : (i) LOGICAL PRIN- 
CIPLES without which thought cannot come to an under- 
standing with itself, — as the principles of identity and con- 
tradiction ; (2) OBJECTIVE PRINCIPLES without which 
science would be impossible, — causation, substance, and 
order; (3) the NOTION OF THE INFINITE. 

130. The origin of the ideas of the reason has been dif- 
ferently explained. The SENSUALISTS believe they can 
explain it by experience ; while the IDEALISTS admit, 
under different forms, that the reason is INNATE. 

131. The truths of the reason are innate in this sense, that 
they antedate experience as so many natural dispositions ; 
but experience is necessary in order to develop and define 
them. 



210 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER XIII 

LANGUAGE AND ITS RELATIONS WITH THOUGHT 

228. Review of the Intellectual Functions. — We have 
followed the human intelligence in the different stages 
of its evolution ; we have seen how the functions of 
perception collect the elements of intelligence under 
the direction of the reason, which is the source of the 
first principle according to which the mind is organ- 
ized ; how the memory and the representative imagina- 
tion preserve these elements ; and, finally, how the 
faculties of elaboration transform them and succeed in 
building up the human consciousness. 

In a word, the reason furnishes, so to speak, the plan 
of the building ; the senses and the consciousness 
collect the materials and place them in charge of the 
memory ; then generalization, abstraction, imagination, 
and reasoning take hold of them in order to construct 
the entire edifice. 

We would have finished the study of human thought 
and its laws, if there were not still to be examined the 
means by which the states of consciousness take shape 
and become incarnate, so to speak, in the material signs 
which we call words and which constitute language. 



LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 211 

and thus are revealed outwardly and are communicated 
to other men. 

229. Language and Thought. — Language, moreover, 
is not only the necessary instrument for the communi- 
cation of thought, and hence one of the essential condi- 
tions of human society ; but it is also an indispensable 
auxiliary to thought itself. Thought owes to it a part 
of its progress Even without communicating itself, 
and while enclosed within the circle of the individual 
consciousness, thought cannot dispense with language. 
We speak our thought mentally, before speaking it out- 
wardly for the benefit of others. The material repre- 
sentation of words accompanies all our conceptions. 

But before explaining the services which language 
renders thought, it is necessary to define it and to 
indicate its nature and origin. 

230. Definition of Language. — We purpose to speak 
in this place, neither of the language of physiognomy 
and gesture, nor of written language and books. This 
study would carry us away too far. It must suffice to 
consider spoken language, or speech, which is the most 
important of all, and one of the essential characteristics 
of man. 

Spoken language may be defined as follows: — A 
system of signs by means of whicJi we give o?ctward ex- 
pression to all onr states of consciousness. 

231 Signs. — Signs are sensible facts which represent 
other facts ; signs are always material, and the thing 



212 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

signified may also be material. For example : lightning 
is the sign of thunder ; in certain countries the branch 
of a tree placed over a door signifies the existence of a 
wine-shop. Or the things signified may be immaterial 
facts. The words of spoken language signify the invis- 
ible thoughts and feelings, which, without language, 
would remain, as it were, buried and concealed in the 
individual consciousness. 

232. Natural Signs and Artificial Signs. — Signs are 
either natural or artificial. In the first case, they are 
immediately understood because they are derived from 
nature itself, and the instinct which produced them also 
interprets them. In the second case, they result from 
convention, and are consequently intelligible only by 
those who have learned the value of the arbitrary rela- 
tion established between them and the things signified. 

"There are signs," says Jouffroy,* "which all men 
use and understand uniformly. The child finds these 
signs and understands them without having learned 
them. Artificial signs, on the contrary, result from 
mere convention, and, this association of the sign with 
the thing signified being arbitrary, it has nothing of the 
universal in it." 

To the category of natural signs we must refer 
laughter, or the expression of joy ; tears, which indicate 
suffering ; and, in general, the gestures and movements 
of the features which translate the inner passions out- 
wardly, — as blushing, pallor, etc. 



LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 213 

As examples of artificial signs, we may note the 
different systems of writing whose symbols have no 
relation with the sounds which they express, — such as 
telegraphic and maritime signals. 

As to spoken language, it is a question whether it is 
a system of natural signs or of artificial signs. Natural 
in its origin, language has become artificial in its devel- 
opments and transformations, and the diversity of lan- 
guages (the number of known languages being not less 
than nine hundred) is an incontestable proof of this. 

233. How the Child learns to speak. — The child 
learns to speak chiefly through imitation. He repeats, 
like a parrot, the sounds which he hears pronounced, 
and attaches to them a meaning, right or wrong, as it 
may chance to be. If there are deaf-mutes, it is 
because, deaf from birth, these unfortunates have not 
been able to reproduce sounds which they have never 
heard. 

Language is then a tradition which the generations 
transmit to one another, and which is thus maintained 
across the centuries. 

It is important, however, to note that the child, in a 
certain sense, invents language : that he displays 
marked activity in the acquisition of the mother- 
tongue ; and that in his earliest years he manifests a 
real spontaneity in the use of words. 

All observers have noticed this initiative of the child. 

"Nothing is more admirable," says Renan,* '' than 



214 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the child's power of expression, and the ingenuity 
which he displays in creating a language of his own 
before the traditional language has been imposed on 
him." 

I am well aware that many words in the child's lan- 
guage have been dictated to him by his nurse and his 
mother, who repeat in his ear the phrases of the tradi- 
tional language of infancy. The words of correct 
speech are expressly disfigured in order to render them 
more intelligible. On the other hand, certain expres- 
sions in the child's vocabulary, apparently original, are 
due wholly to his awkwardness in repeating the sounds 
which he hears. 

But, with these reservations, something is still due to 
the inventive activity of the child. 

** The child," says Albert Lemoine, ''has more to do 
than we think with the language which we teach him. 
He is the inventor of half of it, though we fancy we 
give it to him ready made. See him when the organ of 
speech, still obstructed, does not obey his feeble will ; 
even then he is capable of modulating some vowels, and 
articulating some consonants formed at random, by the 
ill-directed movements of his lips and tongue. . . . 
You fancy that it is really his mother who teaches him 
the first articulate sign, the first word having a meaning. 
Undeceive yourselves ; it is the child who gives the 
first lesson, and it is the mother who learns it. The 
first word which he pronounces, and to which he at- 



LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 



215 



taches a meaning, is not a word of the mother-tongue 
which he learns from his nurse, but it is he who coins 
it out of formless matter, it is he who attaches to it a 
meaning ; it is a word of his own language, and his 
nurse learns this language from him before she teaches 
him her own. This language of the child, very poor, 
whose vocabulary is composed of a few sounds, of mod- 
ulated cries, and of syllables scarcely articulated, — this 
is the instrument which his mother will use in order to 
make him comprehend and accept the scholarly language 
of his country and his century." ^ 

The child then co-operates actively in the acquisi- 
tion of language ; and it is not merely in the invention 
of words that he manifests this spontaneity, but also in 
the natural logic of his gramm.ar. ''The child's lan- 
guage," says Max Miiller,^ an authority on this subject, 
" is more regular than our own. If children had had 
their way, they would little by little have eliminated a 
great number of irregular forms." ^ 

234. Origin of Language. — If it is true that a child 
invents his language in part, it is none the less certain 
that humanity has invented languages complete in all 
their parts. No one to-day would think of reviving the 
old theory which, declaring man incapable of inventing 
a single word, asserted that he had originally received 
from God, through direct revelation and tradition, a 
primitive language completely formed. 

^ Albert Lemoine. De la P/iysionomie et de la Parole^ p. 149. 
2 Max Miiller, Lectures on the Science of Language. 



2l6 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

No : languages have a natural origin. Incessantly 
modified by men in the course of time, they were also 
at their first appearance created by men. 

*'It is a dream," says Renan, *' to imagine a primitive 
state when man did not speak, followed by another 
state when he understood the use of speech. It is as 
natural for man to speak as it is to think ; and. it is as 
little philosophic to assign a definite beginning to lan- 
guage as to thought." 

It is now the almost unanimous belief, that the first 
words used by men were natural cries or interjections, 
which were taken as signs, either of the inner emotions 
which they expressed, or of the exterior objects which 
provoked these emotions ; for example, the sounds and 
noises observed in nature, as the note of a bird, the cry 
of an animal, or the noise of thunder. The primitive 
roots of languages are either interjections or onomato- 
poeas * (imitations of the sounds of nature). 

235. Can we think without Language ? — The services 
which language renders thought are so considerable 
that through an unwarrantable exaggeration it has been 
affirmed that language is the very condition of thought. 
This has been expressed by de Bonald * in this aphorism : 
" Man thinks his speech before he speaks his thought." 
Speech, in other terms, is prior to thought. Man 
thinks only by means of signs. 

Facts disprove this theory. Deaf-mutes think, al- 
though they have not the use of speech. It is true they 



LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 21/ 

employ other signs than words ; but they could not 
appropriate these signs if they did not previously have 
thoughts. 

The child would never learn to speak if he did not 
already have ideas. He is qualified to retain words, 
only because he grasps the relation that connects them 
with the thoughts which they express. 

Doubtless, in the adult, such an indissoluble cohesion 
has taken place between the idea and the word, that we 
scarcely have an idea which is not accompanied by a 
word. Even in our purely inward reflections, we men- 
tally pronounce the words which are the symbols of 
our ideas. But, if words are the instruments of thought, 
they certainly do not create thought. We perceive 
material things, we experience mental anguish, we 
recall our past states, we even judge and reason, with- 
out the aid of words. An unknown object strikes my 
eyes ; I do not know its name, but yet I perceive this 
object. Two different colors present themselves to my 
notice ; I do not need to think of their names in order 
to judge that they are different. 

To a certain degree, then, thought is independent of 
words. An additional proof of this is the dispropor- 
tion which sometimes exists between the power of 
thought and the gift of speech. Doubtless it is usually 
true to say with Boileau : — 

"What is well conceived is clearly expressed." 

It sometimes happens, however, that even profound 



2l8 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

thinkers are not eloquent ; they experience great em- 
barrassment in giving outward expression to their 
thought. 

It is in the case of particular and sensible items of 
knowledge that thought needs the aid of words the 
least. The intelligence, which always seeks a material 
basis of support, finds it, in this case, in the objects 
themselves. On the contrary, when the thought rises 
to abstract and general ideas, the intervention of words 
becomes more necessary, because words are then the 
only material thing on which thought can fix itself. 

236. The Services which Language renders Thought. — 
But when we have proved that thought precedes lan- 
guage, and that we are capable of speaking only be- 
cause we are capable of thinking, we must hasten to 
add that, without language, thought would be singularly 
impotent. In truth, in the actual state of things, 
thought being constantly united with speech, it is diffi- 
cult for us to judge to what point of intellectual feeble- 
ness the privation of language would sink us. We 
may, however, indicate from what special points of view 
language is the indispensable instrument of thought. 
It is (i) an instrument of analysis ; (2) an instrument 
of precision ; (3) a mnemotechnic instrument ; (4) an 
instrument of abbreviation. 

237. Language an Instrument of Analysis. — Condillac 
said that languages are analytical methods. Doubtless 
the analysis of thought is pre-eminently an inward 



LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 



219 



operation, an intellectual process ; and if the mechan- 
ism of language does not accomplish the analysis, it at 
least facilitates it. Moreover, certain judgments are in 
some degree instantaneous acts of the mind ; and lan- 
guage can express them only successively and by differ- 
ent words. Each of these words is, for each element 
of thought, something analogous to the little receivers 
in which the chemist, after having decomposed a body, 
puts apart the various simple elements resulting from 
this decomposition. And so, having separated one from 
another the different parts of its judgments, and having 
immobilized them, so to speak, in distinct words, the 
mind is in a better condition to compare them and to 
grasp their relations. 

238. Language an Instrument of Precision. — Every- 
body knows how vague and uncertain our thoughts 
r-emain as long as they have not been expressed. Our 
conceptions are confused until they have found their 
verbal form. How many times has it happened to us 
to attribute great value to conceptions which, when 
translated into words, seem to us feeble and without 
import ! Words are the pitiless translators of our 
thoughts ; and they bring to the light all their faults. 
In return, they alone give to our ideas all their potency 
and all their clearness. 

239. Language an Aid to Memory. — Language is 
also a vinemotixJinic* instrument, and this advantage 
really results from the preceding statements. In fact. 



220 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

it is precisely because it facilitates the analysis of 
thought, and also because it fixes ideas by incorporating 
them into words, that language assists the memory. It 
is impossible to conceive what the memory would be 
without the aid of language, — a sort of confused chaos 
where we would walk by feeling our way. By means of 
words, on the contrary, we easily manage our recollec- 
tions, especially when these recollections are applied to 
general ideas. 

" A word suffices to represent to us the result to 
which we have been led by long and painful operations. 
It is a total which has been given us by a toilsome 
series of partial additions. Withdraw this word, that is 
to say, this sum, and you condemn yourself to pass 
over the same routes the second time, to recommence 
the same toil. . . . Language, by associating ideas with 
words, fixes and solidifies them. By means of language, 
abstraction and generalization, though pure conceptions, 
assume form and substance, and thus live an independ- 
ent existence, which, wholly fortuitous though it be, 
nevertheless permits us to hold them in reserve and to 
recover them at need."^ 

240. Language an Instrument of Abbreviation. — Finally, 
language is also useful and necessary because it simpli- 
fies and abridges the labor of thought. When ideas 
present themselves to the mind, they are always accom- 
panied, to a greater or less degree, by images. If we 
think of a valley, however rapid our thought may be, 

1 Albert Lemoine, op. cit. 



LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 221 

our imagination represents to us at once meadows, for- 
ests, and neighboring mountains. If we think of 
humanity, even this abstract idea brings with it a train 
of images, as the representation of such a man or of 
such a race. And so, through the intervention of 
words, this labor of imaginative representation is spared 
the mind. The word is substituted, in part, for the 
images ; it becomes, for the disciplined mind, the equiv- 
alent of the idea ; so that we think with words and no 
longer with ideas. When we read or pronounce a dis- 
course, we certainly have not the time to conceive, back 
of each word, all that the word signifies. Just as alge- 
braic signs aid the mathematician in his calculations, 
because they substitute more abstract signs, or conven- 
tional symbols, for real and determinate numbers ; so 
words become a substitute for thought and save us a 
useless labor. 

It is true that the advantages of language encounter 
inconveniences and dangers at this point. In fact, we 
are exposed to the danger of forgetting things and 
ideas themselves, and of relying too much upon words ; 
and, instead of reflecting on the relations which exist 
between signs and the thing signified, our thought 
sometimes becomes purely verbal. The danger of 
" realized abstractions " is also true of language. 

But, notwithstanding, language forms, in some degree, 
an integral part of thought. Created by thought, it in 
turn develops it, aids it, and defines it ; finally, it 
lightens the burden of the intelligence. 



222 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

SUMMARY. 

132. Spoken LANGUAGE is not merely the necessary 
INSTRUMENT for the communication of thought ; but is 
an AUXILIARY in the inner development of individual 
thought. 

133. Language is a COLLECTION OF SIGNS by means 
of which we give outward expression to our states of con- 
sciousness. 

134. Signs are always material facts. 

135. There are two categories of signs : NATURAL 
SIGNS, which are universal and immediately intelligible ; 
and ARTIFICIAL SIGNS, which express only a conven- 
tional relation, and consequently need to be learned. 

136. Language, NATURAL IN ITS ORIGIN, has be- 
come ARTIFICIAL IN ITS DEVELOPMENT AND 
TRANSFORMATIONS. 

137. The child learns to speak chiefly through IMITA- 
TION; he nevertheless evinces a real spontaneity in the 
acquisition of language. 

138. In its origin, language borrowed its first vocal ele- 
ments, either from interjections, or from the CRIES OF 
ANIMALS and NOISES IN NATURE. 

139. It has been asserted, though incorrectly, that speech 
preceded THOUGHT. Thought is certainly PRIOR TO 
LANGUAGE, but it cannot dispense with it. 



LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 



223 



140. In reality, language renders eminent services to 
thought. It is an INSTRUMENT OF ANALYSIS, since 
it permits us to decompose the various elements of thought 
by connecting them with distinct words. 

141. It is an INSTRUMENT OF PRECISION, for it 

gives definite form to our conceptions. 

142. It is a MNEMOTECHNIC INSTRUMENT; for it 

fixes and consolidates, so to speak, the acquired results of 
our intellectual operations. 

143. Finally, it is an INSTRUMENT OF ABBREVIA- 
TION; for it simplifies the labor of thought, and renders 
the mind services analogous to those which algebra renders 
the science of numbers. 



224 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER XIV 

MORAL SENSIBILITY. PERSONAL INCLINATIONS 

241. Moral Sensibility. — We have studied (Chapter 
III.) the physical sensibility and the sensations ; but 
have postponed the examination of the moral sensibility 
and thQ fee li Jigs, till after the study of the intelligence. 
The feelings, in fact, presuppose all the previous ideas 
and conceptions. The moral sensibility is the sensi- 
bility vivified by the intelligence, and guided and di- 
rected by it towards objects superior to the senses and 
to the organic functions. Feeling has always an idea 
for its point of support. The selfish feelings suppose 
the idea of self ; the affectionate feelings, the idea of 
the persons whom we love and of their qualities ; patri- 
otism corresponds to the idea of native country. 

242. The Functions of Sensibility. — There have been 
philosophers who decry sensibility. The Stoics * wished 
to exclude feeling from the life of the sage. The perfect 
man, in their eyes, was the insensible man, indifferent 
to the death of his parents and friends, and to the ruin 
of his country. 

Good sense does justice to these chimeras. To tell 
the truth, man is the more perfect as he is the better 
endowed with feeling ; on condition, however, that his 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 22$ 

sensibility is regulated by reason, that it does not 
degenerate into sentimentality, and that it does not go 
astray in the excesses of passion. 

The pleasures which result from the moral sensibility, 
— the pleasures of affection, of art, and of science, — far 
from being unworthy of man, are perhaps the noblest 
part of his nature. 

Besides rendering life agreeable, they have their 
intrinsic excellence ; they are proofs, as much as the 
reason is, of the dignity of our nature. 

Moreover, the emotions of the sensibility exercise a 
profound influence over the other faculties. 

The intelligence is doubtless sometimes disturbed by 
the sensibility, and the mind may become the dupe of 
the heart. But in other cases, on the contrary, the in- 
tellectual faculties are animated and powerfully excited 
by< feeling. It is not without reason that Vauve- 
nargues * has said : '' The great thoughts come from the 
heart." 

The will would most often be powerless if it also 
were not sustained by feeling. It does not suffice to 
will the good ; it must be loved. Grand actions and 
heroic sacrifices are almost always inspired by feeling. 
The inclinations have a high rank among the very prin- 
ciples of the moral life and voluntary activity. Certain 
austere moralists, like Kant, are wrong in proscribing 
pleasure from ethics. Schiller,* while bantering these 
modern stoics, said with a smile : " I feel remorse, and 



226 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

begin to feel myself a culprit ; I take pleasure in oblig- 
ing my friends." The pleasure felt in being virtuous 
never mars the virtue of which it is the reward. 

Suffering itself has its part in human life, and Alfred 
de Musset,* a great poet, could say with reason : 

" Man is an apprentice ; and sorrow is his master." 

Suffering is a stimulant, for it excites us to struggle 
against it, and to use all our efforts to relieve ourselves 
from its embrace. It is also a tonic, for it fortifies the 
character. 

243. The Inclinations. — The moral sensibility com- 
prises a great number of tendencies to which we give 
the general name of inclmatiojis. 

Inclination, then, is a natural tendency which has an 
idea or a conception for a point of departure, and which, 
when it is satisfied, gives rise to a feeling of joy, but 
when it is opposed, to a feeling of sorrow. 

Every inclination for an object supposes a contrary 
aversion. The love of the beautiful corresponds to an 
aversion for the ugly ; the love of riches, to a repulsion 
for poverty. 

244. Different Forms of Inclination. — Inclination, ac- 
cording as its object is present or absent, past or to come, 
easy or difficult to attain, traverses different periods or 
stages which give rise to particular states of the mind. 

If the object of the inclination is present, the mind, 
as Bossuet said, enjoys its felicity and reposes in it. 
The inclination then takes the form oijoy. 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 22^ 

If, on the contrary, the object is absent ; if we are 
deprived of it, and if, instead of the good, a correspond- 
ing evil is realized ; our soul suffers, and this is sadness. 

When the good pursued by our inclination is some- 
thing future, we await it with impatience and solicit it 
with all our heart. This is desire. 

If circumstances seem to us to render some future 
good probable, we count on a coming pleasure ; and 
this is hope. 

"Desire," said Bossuet, "is a passion which impels 
us to seek what we love when it is absent." And 
again, " Desire is a love which reaches out for a good 
which it does not have. Hope is a love which flatters 
itself that it will possess the object loved." 

If it is the evil which is awaited, and not the good, 
we experience /^^r instead of hope. 

- If the object of our inclination is past, we experience 
a peculiar sadness which is called regret. 

If all sorts of difficulties keep us away from the 
object loved, we become irritated at these obstacles; 
and this is anger. 

All these modifications of inclination depend simply 
on circumstances ; they constitute the modes or forms 
which every inclination may assume. 

Thus the patriot rejoices in the success of his coun- 
try. He is sad if his country is conquered and humili- 
ated. He desires to see her rise again in the future. 
When she is engaged in a military expedition, or in 



228 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

diplomatic negotiations, he hopes and fears for her in 
turn. Sometimes he looks back upon her past glories 
with regret. The ambitious man, the miser, — every 
man, in a word, who is possessed by an inclination, 
passes in succession through these different states. 

245. Classification of the Passions according to Bos- 
suet. — Bossuet improperly called these different states 
of the sensibility, passions. " Passion," he says, " is the 
movement of the soul which, touched with the pleasure 
or the pain felt or imagined in an object, pursues it or 
shrinks from it." 

He enumerated eleven passions : love and hate, desire 
and aversion, joy and sorrow, boldness and fear, hope 
and despair, and lastly, anger. 

And he further remarked that all these passions 
"are connected with one love which restrains or excites 
them all. . . . Take away love, and there is no longer 
passion ; add love, and you produce them all." All the 
other passions, shame, envy, emulation, admiration, as- 
tonishment, and some others like them, are, according to 
him, but modifications of the eleven primitive passions. 

246. Criticism of this Theory. — It is no longer cus- 
tomary to employ the word "passion " to designate the 
different forms of inclination. It was through a singu- 
lar abuse of language that Bossuet applied this term, 
the synonym of a violent state of ardent emotion, to a 
feeling as calm and as mild as hope. Moreover, in his 
incomplete theory, Bossuet did not take into account 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 229 

the circumstance that the object of our inclination is 
often in the past, and that from this circumstance there 
result new modifications in the form of the inclination. 
Finally, it was arbitrary for Bossuet to count eleven 
passions and no more. It is impossible for the most 
exact psychology to enumerate with such precision the 
different changes and movements of love, by reason of 
the complex elements which are ever introducing varia- 
tions into its manifestations. 

247. True Characteristics of Passion. — As it seems to 
US, we must reserve the word ''passions" to designate 
the extreme states of every inclination. Generally 
moderate at its beginning, associating itself in the soul 
with a host of other inclinations which share among 
themselves our faculty of loving, each inclination tends 
to exalt itself, to become exclusive and jealous, to 
monopolize all our thoughts, and to aim at sole dom- 
ination. 

Passion is violent and impetuous : it enslaves our 
will and obscures our intelligence. It throws disorder 
into the soul. It is most often evil and vicious. It 
may be defined as inordinate and perverted sensibility. 

All our inclinations, even the highest, under the 
influence of circumstances, become exaggerated and 
corrupted. It is not only the personal inclinations 
which give rise to passions such as intemperance, ava- 
rice, and culpable ambition ; but even the purest and 
the noblest feelings may degenerate through excess 



230 ELEMENTS OF PSYClIOLOCiV 

into feelings that are evil or to be regretted. Excess of 
religious feeling leads to fanaticism ; excess of the 
patriotic feeling may inspire a fierce hatred of the 
foreigner ; excess of paternal or maternal feeling may 
engender mischievous partiality and unjustifiable 
preferences. 

248. Different Kinds of Inclinations. — We have not 
only to distinguish the forms of inclination, but also to 
divide them into certain classes according to the ends 
which they pursue. There will be as many kinds of 
iiulinatiojis as there are distinct objects to which our 
conscious sensibility may attach its affection. 

249. Division of Inclinations. — The division of incli- 
nations into kinds is therefore founded on the difference 
among the objects to which they relate. 

Sometimes we love ourselves, and self is the source 
of our emotions and feelings. Hence arise the pci'so7ial 
or selfish ijiclinatiojis. 

Or we love other men, our companions, our parents, 
our fellow-citizens, or our friends. These are the social 
inclinations, or affectionate feelings which are summed 
up in the love of others, and which the positivist school 
designates by the term altruistic inclinations. 

And, finally, our sensibility passes beyond persons, 
and attaches itself to the ideas and conceptions of our 
mind, as the beautiful, the true, and the good. These 
are the ideal inclinations, and they might also be called 
the impersonal feelings. 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 23 I 

250. Personal Inclinations. — The common principle 
of all the personal inclinations is the love of self, which 
is itself but the consequence of a more general inclina- 
tion, the love of existence. From the simple fact that 
we exist, we tend to persevere in existence, and we love 
whatever contributes towards increasing, or at least 
preserving, our existence. Hence arise, according to 
the very diversity of the things which contribute to the 
development of life, the particular inclinations which 
are connected with the different forms of existence. 

251. The Instinct of Conservation. — The first mani- 
festation of the love of self is the instinct of conserva- 
tion, the love of life. The most unhappy men prefer 
life to death : 

" Rather suffer than die, 
Is the motto of men." 

It is true that this motto is sometimes disproved by 
facts, and that suicide contradicts it. In this case it is 
a stronger inclination which triumphs over the instinct 
of conservation. He who voluntarily cuts short his 
days loves life as well as other men do ; but this love of 
life is swayed, in his case, by a violent passion which 
bears down with a heavier weight in the balance of his 
resolutions. The fear of physical suffering and the 
sense of moral pain have, in the case of the suicide, 
gained ascendency over every other consideration. 

252. Self -Love. — One of the most characteristic forms 
of the instinct of conservation is self love, which is de- 



232 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

rived not merely from the love of existence, but from 
the love of perfection. We wish not only to exist, but 
to excel in everything, to distinguish ourselves from 
our fellows and to be their superiors. From self-love 
are derived a great number of feelings, good and bad. 

Legitimate in its origin, self-love tends, in fact, to 
degenerate through excess. It is right to esteem one's 
self, to have a good opinion of self, but yet on one con- 
dition ; and this is that we merit this esteem and this 
good opinion. Now, through partiality for ourselves, 
we are disposed not only to exaggerate the worth of 
the virtues which we possess, but to ascribe to ourselves 
virtues which we do not have, and to conceal from our- 
selves our most striking faults. 

Self-love also leads us to plume ourselves on vain and 
insignificant advantages ; it then becomes vanity, while 
pride, though equally censurable, is derived from an ex- 
aggerated consciousness of qualities which have their 
value. To boast of a beautiful face or a fine dress, is 
vanity ; while to show off or feel conceited because one 
is eloquent or wise, is pride. 

Self-love gives rise to a multitude of feelings, as 
the love of praise, of approbation, of esteem, love of 
glory, emulation, etc., — feelings, we repeat, which are 
legitimate in themselves, but which are easily perverted 
and so become false ; emulation, for example, becomes 
transformed into jealousy. 

253. Love of Power. — Love of pozver, or ambition, is 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 



233 



a derivative from the love of self. Some men seek 
power because power permits their activity to display 
itself freely ; because, moreover, it brings them into 
personal prominence and draws to themselves at least 
the apparent respect of other men ; and, finally, because 
it assures to them a preponderance or domination among 
their fellows. 

" The imperious character becomes noticeable even in 
infancy. Notice children in their plays. There is one 
among them who is their general if they form an army, 
and their coachman if it is an equipage. Alcibiades * 
gave an early proof of his love of domination. While 
still very young he was playing at huckle-bones in a 
narrow street. As it was his turn to throw them, he 
saw a loaded cart approaching. He at once shouted to 
the driver to stop. As the man continued to advance, 
the other children retired ; but Alcibiades, throwing 
himself on the ground before the horses, said to the 
driver : * Come on now if you will ! ' . . . We know 
nothing of the childhood of Napoleon, except that at 
Brienne, when his companions in their play had built 
fortresses of snow, it was he who led the attack." ^ 

The love of power is not so much the love of power 
for its own sake, as the love of the consequences which 
result from it. Ambition is the trait of an encroaching 
personality which aspires to make his will absolute, to 
dominate, if not to destroy, the wills of others. 

Ambition, while it measures its strensith with the 

1 Gamier, Traite dcs fatiilfcs de Pdinc.i. iv., p. 171. 



234 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

real powers of an individual, and, to attain its end, 
uses only allowable means, is a legitimate inclination. 
There are noble and beautiful ambitions ; but too often 
the love of power betrays aims disproportionate to the 
merit of the ambitious man ; and, consequently, like 
all the passions, it may lead men on to culpable and 
criminal acts. 

254. The Love of Property. — Property being a condi- 
tion of personal well-being, an element of happiness, it 
is just to count among the selfish inclinations the love 
of property. *' What is my own is near to me ; the 
things which belong to us are like an extension of our 
personality." ^ 

The love of property is already noticeable in the 
child, who early defends his toys, his copy-books, and 
his books, against every attempt at usurpation. But it 
holds a very large place in the preoccupations of the 
mature man ; and then it readily tends towards exag- 
geration, towards becoming a mania, a vice, avarice. 

"There are men who accumulate for the simple 
pleasure of accumulating. Some accumulate a multi- 
tude of incongruous objects which can never be of any 
use to them ; others, far from desiring any advantage 
from the supplies they have accumulated, see in them 
no other utility than the accumulation itself ; they are 
unwilling to part with the fruits of their store-room, 
with the wine of their cellar, or with the coin in their 
cash-box ; they receive their revenues only to refund 

' Garnier, c/. «V., t. iv., p. 171. 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 



235 



them, and to collect new proceeds which they again 
invest ; they are in despair at the idea that all this must 
be given up, and that men go stripped to the tomb. . . . 
A miser often loves his money better than he does 
his children. MoViere' s Har/fag-o/i* is a proof of this. 
. . . The miser, says Pope, is as much a slave as the 
negro employed in the mines. The only difference 
between them is that one unearths gold, and the other 
buries it." ^ 

255. SeifLshness. — All the manifestations of self-love, 
when they exceed moderation, are summed up in selfish- 
ness^ that is, the moral state of the man who connects 
everything with himself, with his own personal interests. 

To think of self, to prefer self to all others, is a 
primitive instinct, contemporary with the first awaken- 
ing of consciousness. The love of liberty, the love of 
nature, and still other feelings, suppose a certain prog- 
ress in reflection. Man does not become a patriot or 
a philanthropist, save as he is educated ; but he is self- 
ish simply because he is a man. Doubtless our actual 
social condition is of a nature to develop selfishness, by 
reason of the increase in independence and well-being ; 
but, on the other hand, the effect of civilization is more 
and more to strengthen the benevolent and social feel- 
ings, and consequently to reduce the amount of selfish- 
ness in our hearts. 

''Civilization," says August Comte,* "by developing 
to an immense and always increasing degree the action 

1 Garnier, op. cit.. t. i., p. 132. 



236 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of man on the external world, . . . civilization seems 
at first destined to concentrate our attention more and 
more on the cares of our mere material existence, whose 
maintenance and amelioration constitute, apparently, 
the principal object of most social occupations ; but a 
more profound examination shows, on the contrary, that 
this development tends continually to give precedence 
to the higher faculties of human nature (the generous 
sentiments), either by the very security which it neces- 
sarily inspires with respect to physical needs whose 
consideration becomes less and less absorbing ; or by 
the direct and continuous excitation which it necessarily 
impresses on the intellectual functions and even on the 
social feelings." ^ 

256. Evil Consequences of Selfishness. — Moralists have 
often described the caprices of selfishness. 

" Gnathon," says La Bruyere, " knows no other mis- 
fortunes than his own. He does not weep over the 
death of others ; he apprehends only his own, which he 
would willingly redeem by the extinction of the human 
race. . . . Gnathon lives only for himself, and all the 
men in the world are, in his sight, as though they did 
not exist." 

We might perhaps call in question the second part of 
the aphorism. The egoist knows that there are men, 
and he makes use of them. 

Pascal says, to the same effect : — 

"The me is odious because it is unjust, because it 

1 August Comte, Philosophie positive. 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 



237 



makes itself the centre of everything. The ' me ' is 
disagreeable to others because it wishes to domineer 
over them. Each ' me ' is the enemy and would be the 
tyrant of all others. We must detest it because it 
declares itself openly, or because it dissembles itself 
through politeness and in order not to cause displeasure 
to others." 

It is worthy of special remark that the egoist de- 
ceives himself and is his own dupe. He seeks nothing 
but happiness, but has taken the wrong road to find it. 
Doubtless he does not suffer over the misfortunes of 
others, since he does not love others. Fielding has 
wittily said that the selfishness which coils a man up 
like a ball makes him capable of rolling along in the 
world without ever being affected by the misfortunes of 
others. 

But precisely because he has concentrated all his 
affections on himself, the egoist will find in his personal 
misfortunes, — deceptions of his vanity, wounds to his 
pride, accidents to health, and vicissitudes of fortune, — 
sources of bitterness whose violence nothing will ever 
correct or assuage, since he has excluded himself from 
every other source of happiness. The egoist is thus a 
blunderer and is lacking as much in spirit as in heart. 
He has made a false calculation in his passionate search 
for happiness. It is in the generous affections, and in 
devotion to others, that the secret of happiness resides. 
Let us then exert ourselves to become detached from 



238 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ourselves. Let us recollect that the sweetest of our 
joys are even those which we procure for others. 

" It is by bringing the coals together that they burn," 
says the Indian proverb. So it is the union of men 
that gives them their power and their happiness ; and 
like the coals, also, it is by separating themselves that 
they lose their warmth and vitality. The good things 
of this world are sweeter when shared with others than 
when enjoyed alone ; and as a fabulist has said : 

** The whole is not worth the half." 

Saint Theresa, wishing to show that the real merit 
of men resides in charity, said : " At death we no 
longer possess anything ; there remains nothing save 
what we have given away." 

And so, true personal happiness consists in loving 
others. The "me" is really satisfied only when it has 
been absorbed in others. It is never happier than 
when it has forgotten itself. The true selfishness con- 
sists in not being selfish. 

SUMMARY. 

144. The MORAL SENSIBILITY is the sensibility vivi- 
fied and directed by the intelligence. 

145. The facts of moral sensibility have received the 
generic name of FEELINGS. Every feeling supposes an 
object known by the intelligence, and, consequently, an idea, 
— the idea of what is loved. 



MORAL SENSIBILITY 



239 



146. The sensibility plays an important and useful part in 
human life. It not only renders existence agreeable and 
charming, but the feelings have their own proper excellence 
and dignity ; moreover, they excite thought and stimulate 
action. 

147. The feelings are derived from a certain number of 
natural tendencies called INCLINATIONS. 

148. Every incUnation assumes different FORMS accord- 
ing as the object which it pursues is present or absent, past 
or future, easy or difficult to attain. 

149. Bossuet was wrong in calling the forms and modes of 
inclination PASSIONS. Passion is an extreme, violent, and 
excessive state of the inclinations. 

150. The inclinations may be distributed into a certain 
number of SPECIES, according to the difference in the 
objects to which they are attached. 

151. There are three species of inclinations: the PER- 
SONAL inclinations, the SOCIAL or affectionate inclina- 
tions, and the IDEAL inclinations. 

152. The source of the personal inclinations is the LOVE 
OF SELF, which is itself derived from the love of existence. 

153. The different manifestations of the love of self are 
the INSTINCT OF CONSERVATION, SELF-LOVE, LOVE 
OF POWER, and the LOVE OF PROPERTY. 

154. Legitimate in their origin, the seinclinations tend to 
become exaggerated, exclusive, and, consequently, evil. 

155- We call SELFISHNESS the moral state of a man in 
whom the personal inclinations have an exclusive domination. 



240 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER XV 

THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS AND THE IDEAL 
INCLINATIONS 

257. The Social Inclinations. — The common charac- 
teristic of the personal inclinations is that they are 
interested. Having self for their object, they seek per- 
sonal good ; they are governed by interest. 

The social inclinations, on the contrary, are disinter- 
ested ; they tend to the good of others. They all con- 
sist in disengaging a person from himself, in forgetting 
his own happiness in order to seek the happiness of 
others. 

258. Improper Use of the Word Love. — It is for the 
social inclinations, consequently, that must be reserved 
the beautiful word "love," which ordinary' language 
strangely misuses. It is customary to say that one 
loves himself, and that the glutton loves wine and 
coffee. But what relation is there between these self- 
ish and inferior feelings and the generous emotions 
which attach us to others, and which make our hearts 
beat for our country and for justice.-* Doubtless pleas- 
ure accompanies all our sensations and all our feelings, 
and it is for this reason that language has sanctioned 
the custom of saying that we love all the things that 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 24I 

procure us pleasure. But there is no comparison pos- 
sible between the material enjoyments of the senses 
and the noble joys of affection under all its forms. He 
alone loves truly, who, renouncing self, bestows upon 
others the glowing emotions of his heart. 

259. Division of the Social Inclinations. — In the first 
place, we love all men in general, and this is sociability ; 
in the second place, we love more particularly, among 
men, those who are the most nearly related to us, those 
who are united to us by ties of blood, — these are 
t\iQ family affections ; in the third place, we consecrate 
a particular affection to our country and to our fellow- 
citizens, — these are the patriotic feelings ; and finally, 
we experience feelings of individual affection for the 
persons whom we prefer to all others, and who become 
the objects of an exclusive and privileged tenderness, — 
these are love ^.nd friendship. 

260. Sophism of Rousseau. — Sociability is a universal 
inclination, to which no man of a sound mind is a 
stranger. Misanthropes are monstrous exceptions. 
Every man, in the normal conditions of his moral 
development, loves humanity. Savage tribes themselves 
are societies, imperfect and rudimentary, doubtless, but 
even in them individuals find pleasure in aiding one 
another. The child who does not yet know what the 
family is, testifies his joy at the sight of human faces. 

Nevertheless, the existence of the social instinct has 
been called in question. Rousseau, always ready with 



242 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

a sophism,* has asserted that society is but a natural 
fact. Hobbes* had previously maintained the same 
opinion. 

"Nature," says Rousseau, "has taken but little pains 
to bring men together ; she has made but little prepara- 
tion for their sociability. ... It is impossible to imag- 
ine why, in a primitive state, a man should have more 
need of another man, than a monkey or a wolf, of one 
of its kind. Society does not necessarily result from 
the faculties of man, and could not have been estab- 
lished save by the aid of hazard, and by circumstances 
that might not have taken place." 

So, then, social life is but a hazard, an accident. 
Aristotle had replied in advance to the paradoxes of 
Rousseau, when he defined man "a social animal," and 
when he added : — 

" Men are united because they could not support 
themselves in isolation, although the pleasure of living 
together was of itself capable of founding society." 

It is hardly necessary to say more in refutation of 
Rousseau's opinion. The universal fact of the exist- 
ence of societies gives it a formal contradiction. Man 
would be powerless to develop himself physically and 
morally if he lived alone. The natural faculty of lan- 
guage would no longer have reason for existence outside 
of society. 

But what we are aiming particularly to prove is not 
that society is a natural and necessary fact, but that it 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 243 

is a source of pleasure, and that a common feeling of 
affection unites us to all men. 

261. Need of Sociability. — The social inclination, 
being one of those which are the most constantly satis- 
fied, does not give rise to enjoyments as keen as the 
inclinations which enter into possession of their object 
only rarely and at long intervals. Pleasure, in other 
words, is not a durable state. By prolonging itself it 
becomes extinguished. 

But let some circumstance come to deprive us of the 
society of our fellows, and then we shall feel a discom- 
fort which, by its very keenness, will give evidence of 
the secret and concealed power of the feeling whose 
sweetness long habit has hidden from us. 

Robinson Crusoe* was conceived by the English 
novelist to prove that, in a certain measure, the individ- 
ual, by his labor and personal industry, may supply the 
place of the social co-operation of all men. Yet Robin- 
son Crusoe himself admits that there is at least one 
thing which he keenly misses, and this is the compan- 
ionship of his fellows ; and it is this which renders his 
exclamations so touching, when, after having vainly 
searched the ruins of the stranded boat, he cries : — 

-'' Ah ! if a man had been saved ! If a single man 
could have been saved ! " 

Silvio Pellico* relates, in the memoirs of his captivity, 
how he was gladdened at the sight of a man, were that 
man a jailer : " I went to the window longing for the 



244 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

sight of some new face, and I thought myself happy if 
the sentinel in his rounds did not graze the wall in 
passing, but kept far enough from it so that it might be 
possible for me to see him. When the soldier, who had 
a face expressing honesty, raised his head, and when I 
thought I could discover in it some trace of compassion, 
I experienced a gentle palpitation, as if this unknown 
soldier had been my friend. When he withdrew, I 
awaited his return with a tender anxiety, and if he 
looked at me as he came back, I rejoiced at it as a great 
act of charity." 

It is not only in prison that there springs up this 
melancholy of solitude, this pining for society. Frank- 
lin ^ relates how, on the open sea, in a voyage which had 
lasted for a long time, the meeting with a vessel was 
for the passengers a real merry-making : he goes on to 
say that on one of his voyages he fell in with a vessel 
sailing from Dublin to New York, having fifty laborers 
of both sexes. They all appeared on deck and seemed 
transported with joy at the sight of another vessel. To 
meet a vessel on the open sea causes a real gratification. 
We love to see again creatures of our own species after 
having been separated for a long time from the rest of 
mankind. My heart beat with joy, he adds, and I 
laughed with delight. The two captains promised to 
continue their voyage in company, but shortly after- 
ward the Ncige was lost from sight, and sadness once 
more invaded the whole company. 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 



245 



262. Sympathy. — The social inclinations, under all 
their forms, are sometimes called sympathetic, because 
they have their common source in sympathy. The love 
of other men in general, the love of our parents, friend- 
ship, — in a word, all the affections, suppose that we 
sympathize with the persons who are the objects of our 
love. 

But sympathy is to be understood in two different 
senses. First, it is simply the tendency on our part to 
put our feelings in accord with those of others. We 
laugh with those who laugh, we weep with those who 
weep. In a crowd at the theatre we easily participate 
in the emotions experienced by our fellows. But sym- 
pathy is something besides this ; it is the tendency to 
love those who have the same feelings that we have, 
those who have some resemblance with our own nature. 
. . . And the second form of sympathy, as we knovv^, is 
but the consequence of the first. In fact, our affec- 
tions extend themselves by preference to those who 
most resemble us in their character, in their virtues, or 
in their faults. It is the law of resemblance which 
guides the affections and the unions of the heart, just 
as we have already seen that it directs a great number 
of our intellectual associations. We love all men, be- 
cause, in a general way, they resemble us ; we love our 
parents and our fellow-citizens more, because they re- 
semble us in a more particular way ; finally, we prefer 
our friends to other men, because there is between them 



246 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

and us a greater community of opinions, manners, and 
habits. 

263. Refutation of La Rochefoucauld. — If, as a practi- 
cal fact, tliere are egoists who, denying all disinterested 
affection, reserve for themselves all their sensibility, 
there are also, theoretically, moralists and philosophers 
who deny to man the power of truly loving other men. 
This is the thesis, for example, of the author of the 
Maximcs, La Rochefoucauld.* According to him, the 
love of self and the things of self is the common basis 
and the unique source of all our inclinations, even of 
those which are apparently the most generous and the 
most disinterested. It is not others whom we really 
love, it is ourselves whom we love in others ; it is the 
pleasure which others procure for us or the advantages 
which we expect from others. 

"Gratitude," says the author of the Maxwtes, ''h 
like the good faith of merchants, — it maintains com- 
merce. Pity is a skilful prevision of the evils into 
which we may fall ; services which we render to others 
are, properly speaking, the good which we do to our- 
selves in advance. The most disinterested friendship 
is nothing but a trade in which our self-love always pro- 
poses something to be gained. Generosity is but a dis- 
guised ambition which spurns a low rate of interest in 
order to reach a higher. Goodness is indolence or im- 
potence ; or rather, we lend at a high rate of interest 
under pretext of giving." 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 247 

If La Rochefoucauld had been content to say that 
human feelings are often disinterested only in appear- 
ance, and that selfishness loves to put on the mask of 
self-devotion, we might say that he had overdone the 
strokes of his satire and that he had taken delight in 
slander and in the portraiture of evil. But he has 
chosen to generalize, and to establish as a universal 
rule what is nothing more than an exception ; he has 
calumniated human nature. 

La Rochefoucauld refutes himself, in fact, when he 
tells us that the disinterested feelings are but feigning 
hypocrites. He forgets that, in order that there may 
be simulation in certain cases, there must be reality in 
other cases. The egoists have an interest in appearing 
grateful, and they are able by their false protestations 
to delude those whom they dupe, only because, on the 
other hand, there are men who are really grateful. 

It is true that pleasure always accompanies our emo- 
tions, even the most disinterested. The man who 
forgets himself in order to devote himself to a friend, 
finds in his devotion an extreme joy and satisfaction. But 
this pleasure, which is the consequence of the affection, 
is neither its purpose nor its cause. It is because we 
love our parents that we find pleasure in loving them ; 
but it is not the pleasure which is the reason of our 
love. This is so true, that pleasure can result only 
from a true and sincere love. "Yes," says Janet, "to 
love is a pleasure, but it is on the condition of loving, 



248 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

that is, of attaching ourselves to something different 
from self. If we think of ourselves, the pleasure dis- 
appears, the charm is broken." 

264. Family Affection. — La Rochefoucauld, whose 
cynical analysis attacks almost all the feelings, has, 
nevertheless, respected family affection ; he has not 
dared to say that a mother obeys interested calculations 
when she devotes herself to her child. 

Family affection is one of the most intense and pene- 
trating of the feelings. In ardor of tenderness and 
energy of devotion, nothing surpasses maternal and 
paternal affection. 

Family affection is also to be regarded as one of the 
most natural of the feelings, though it is to be recol- 
lected that civilization has contributed towards fortify- 
ing and refining it, since it has established the founda- 
tions of the family on more equitable bases. Formerly, 
under a rcgivic which sanctioned primogenitureship, 
fraternal affection could not resemble what it is to-day. 
So also conjugal affection was very different from what 
it has become, when the wife was not the equal, but the 
slave, of man. 

The affection of parents for children, and of children 
for parents, has also varied with the progressive temper- 
ing of the domestic relations. But this affection has 
always existed with the peculiar characteristic imposed 
on it by the manners of the times. Two thousand 
years ago, Socrates said to his son Lamprocles : " Do 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 249 

you not owe gratitude to a mother who is so benevo- 
lent to you, who, when you are ill, takes care of you to 
the utmost of her power that you may recover your 
health, and that you may want nothing that is neces- 
sary for you, and who, besides, entreats the gods for 
many blessings on your head and pays vows for you, — 
do you not owe gratitude to such a mother? You, 
therefore, my son, if you are wise, will entreat the gods 
to pardon you if you have been wanting in respect 
towards your mother, lest, regarding you as an un- 
grateful person, they should be disinclined to do you 
good ; and you will have regard, also, to the opinion of 
men, lest, observing you to be neglectful of your 
parents, they should all condemn you, and you should 
then be found destitute of friends ; for if men surmise 
that you are ungrateful toward your parents, no one 
will believe that if he does you a kmdness he will meet 
with gratitude in return." ^ 

265. Patriotism. — Between the love of humanity and 
the love of family comes patriotism, more definite and 
more restricted than the first, broader and more diffused 
than the second. Different elements contribute to 
this, but chiefly the idea of native land, that is, of the 
ideal created in our mind either by the conception of 
the history of our country, or the thought of our fel- 
low-citizens speaking the same language and united 
with us by common interests, or by the representation 
of the soil and territory which we inhabit. 

i Xenoi)hon, Monorabilia, book ii., ch. ii. 



250 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

266. Friendship. — The social affections of which we 
have thus far been speaking are derived from nature 
itself. It does not depend upon us to belong to another 
family or to another country. We do not choose them. 
But we do choose our friends ; and hence the expression 
elective"^ affinities or affections, employed to designate 
friendship and love. 

No one, save Montaigne, has better described than 
Aristotle the pleasures and the delights of friendship : 

" For the presence itself of friends is delightful both 
in prosperity and adversity ; since the grief of those 
who are in affliction is lightened when their friends 
participate of their sorrow. Hence, likewise, it may be 
doubted whether friends share a part of the affliction 
of their friends, as if it were part of a burden. Or is 
this not the case : that the presence of friends being 
delightful, the conception that they participate of the 
sorrow produces a diminution of the grief } For a 
friend possesses a consoling power, both in his presence 
and his words, if he is dexterous, since he knows the 
manners of his friend, and with what he is pleased and 
pained." ^ 

" But in the friendship I speak of," says Montaigne, 
"our souls mix and work themselves into one piece 
with so universal a mixture that there is no more sign 
of the seam by which they were first conjoined. Our 
souls are drawn so unanimously together, and we have 
with so mutual a confidence laid open the very bottom 

1 Aristotle, Ethics, book ix., cli. xi. 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 25 I 

of our hearts to one another's view, that I not only- 
know his as well as my own ; but should certainly, in 
any concern of mine, have trusted my interest much 
more willingly with him than with myself." ^ 

267. The Ideal Inclinations. — It remains to say a few 
words of the third category of our inclinations, which 
we call ideal for lack of a better term. They are some- 
times called "higher" inclinations; but we refuse to 
admit that, in the way of inclination, there is anything 
higher than paternal love or patriotic feeling. The 
word ideal, on the contrary, is justified as a designation 
for these emotions of a wholly particular class, because 
ideas, as intellectual elements, play a preponderant part 
in them. These inclinations are neither more humane 
nor more disinterested than the social inclinations ; but 
their principal characteristic is that they are not con- 
nected with persons, but are derived from a pronounced 
development of the reason and of general ideas, and 
correspond to a certain degree of culture. 

268. Division of the Ideal Inclinations. — It is not pro- 
posed to describe these inclinations in detail, but in a 
summary way to enumerate and characterize them. 

Some are connected with the tnie, or with science. 
These are the scientific inclinations. 

Others are connected with the good^ or with virtue. 
These are the moral feelings. 

Still others are connected with the beautiful^ or the 
fine arts. These are the aesthetic * inclinations. 

' Montaigne, Essays^ book i., ch. xxvii. 



252 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Finally, we must include in this category of ideal 
inclinations, the feeling to which the idea of God gives 
rise, — the religious feeling. 

269. Love of the True. — If we recall what has been 
said of the origin of pleasure, — that it always has its 
origin in activity, — we shall comprehend without diffi- 
culty that thought, from the very fact that it acts and 
enters into possession of its object, which is truth, 
that thought in this commerce experiences veritable de- 
lights. 

The great scholars who discover new truths experi- 
ence more than other men the pleasures of thought. 
But no man is a stranger to them, and we all know the 
joys of reading, of study, and of scientific research. 

Montesquieu * said, " I have never felt a chagrin for 
which an hour of reading has not consoled me." 

"With study," said Augustin Thierry,* "we traverse 
evil days without feeling their weight ; we create our 
own destiny and employ our life nobly. This is what I 
have done, and what I would do again if I had to begin 
the journey of life over again. Blind and suffering, 
without hope and almost without respite, I can give 
myself this testimony, which on my part will never be 
suspected : there is something that is worth more than 
material joys, more than fortune, more than health 
itself, — this is devotion to science." ^ 

270, Moral Sentiments. — We are sensible of the good 
as well as of the true. Virtue excites our admiration 

1 A. Thierry, Dix ans d'etudes^ Preface. 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 253 

in others, and our gratification in ourselves. We take 
delight in contemplating the noble actions of others ; 
and we rejoice in whatever of good we have been able 
to do ourselves. 

So, also, evil excites our aversion. We feel a repug- 
nance, a horror, for the crimes committed by our fel- 
lows. We reprove ourselves for the evil we have done ; 
we repent of it, we feel remorse for it. 

These feelings, joined to the idea of the good and to 
the idea of duty, constitute what is called, by a single 
word, the moral consciousness, the exact description of 
which will find its natural place in our Elements de 
morale. 

271. -Esthetic Sentiments. — The very varied inclina- 
tions which we feel for the different manifestations of 
the beautiful, either in art or in nature, are called the 
aesthetic* sentiments. 

The beautiful is much more difficult to define than 
the good and the true. The true is evidently the con- 
formity of thought with reality ; and the good, the 
conformity of action with the moral law. But what 
shall be said of the beautiful } In truth, no one of the 
formulas proposed by philosophers is satisfactory ; ^ and 
we must perhaps be content to define the beautiful by 
the characteristic emotion which it excites in our hearts, 
— admiration. 

1 H. Marion defines the beautiful as " the intelligible, the perfect, the rational 
clothed in sensible forms." But what is there rational in beautiful colors? And 
what sensible forms are there in a noble act of patriotism, or of family devotion ? 



254 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

In default of a general definition of the beautiful, 
it is still possible to find particular definitions for the 
different species of beauty. Moral beauty is the per- 
fection of virtue ; physical beauty is regularity of feat- 
ures associated with a certain expression. 

The. beautiful is doubtless a conception of our reason; 
but the beautiful varies in nature with each of the arts, 
poetry, painting, music, etc., which seek to express it. 
Each artist has an ideal which he pursues, and this 
ideal is doubtless derived from the reason, in so far as 
it is the studied purpose, the innate tendency of nature ; 
but it is the experience of each one, and the conditions 
peculiar to each art, which more or less determine and 
realize this ideal. 

The beautiful ought, moreover, to be distinguished 
from the pretty and the sublime. The pretty is not 
merely a diminutive of the beautiful ; it is something 
particular and indefinable which is connected with pro- 
portions less grand. The sublime, on the contrary, sup- 
poses colossal proportions and always implies something 
extraordinary and even inordinate. 

The aesthetic feelings are the source of very keen 
enjoyments, but they require a special culture and a 
true intellectual refinement. 

But the beautiful does not exist merely in art and in 
the creations of man ; we also look for it and love it in 
nature. 

272. The Feeliiif? of Nature. — The feelino- of nature 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 255 

forms a part of that category of complex feelings 
which are not developed in all men, which are not con- 
temporary with all the ages of humanity. 

Milton,* in his " Paradise Lost," ascribes this lan- 
guage to Eve : — 

" Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, 
With charm of earh'est birds; pleasant the sun, 
When first on this dehghtful land he spreads 
His orient beams, and sweet the coming on 
or "grateful ev'ning mild; then silent night 
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon, 
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train." 

The first of the race had not the leisure to devote 
themselves to these poetic contemplations, and nature, 
with all the obstacles which she opposed to the peace 
of their existence, could scarcely provoke their admira- 
tion. 

The feeling of nature is a complex feeling, which 
supposes a great number of elements, and which can be 
developed in the human heart only when humanity has 
risen to a certain degree of intellectual culture. 
Nature speaks at once to our senses, to our scientific 
intelligence, and to our religious instincts. The love 
of nature evidently contains sense-elements, as the 
attractions of brilliant colors and harmonious lines ; but 
it is modified in a thousand ways by the scientific or 
religious ideas which are mingled with it. '' The 
atheists," said Rousseau, "do not love the country." 



256 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

At all events they love it differently from religious 
men, who, back of nature, see the creative action of 
God. 

273. The Religious Sentiment. — The religious senti- 
ment, like the other ideal feelings, is intimately con- 
nected with intellectual facts. It evidently exists only 
in souls where religious beliefs have been developed. 
Wherever the idea of God is absent, the religious sen- 
timent disappears with it. It varies, however, with the 
forms, so diverse, which religion assumes. With primi- 
tive peoples, it was a feeling of fear and terror with 
respect to the malevolent and terrible divinities. Then 
man recognized, little by little, the divine goodness, or 
at least the beneficent influence of the forces of nature. 
Since then, the religious sentiment, without ceasing to 
be a fear, has consisted chiefly of love and gratitude, of 
confidence and repose. 

It is particularly with respect to the intellectual and 
ideal feelings, that the sensibility varies with the times 
and with the progress of the centuries. We love dif- 
ferent things from what our ancestors loved, and we 
love the same things differently. Though psychology 
may do its best, it cannot grasp in all their shades, 
those delicate feelings which are incessantly modifying 
themselves, and which take almost as many forms as 
there are individuals. There are a hundred ways of 
loving the beautiful ; and there are also a hundred ways 
of loving God, 



THE SOCIAL INCLINATIONS 257 

SUMMARY. 

156. The common characteristic of the SOCIAL INCLI- 
NATIONS is that they are DISINTERESTED ; they alone 
make us truly capable of loving. 

157. The social inclinations comprise: — (i) the love of 
other men in general, or SOCIABILITY; (2) the love of 
our parents, or the FAMILY AFFECTIONS; (3) the love 
of our fellow-citizens, or the PATRIOTIC AFFECTIONS; 
(4) the elective or individual affections, as FRIENDSHIP 
and LOVE. 

158. SOCIABILITY is a natural fact ; habit sometimes 
makes us insensible to the pleasures derived from it ; but in 
isolation we keenly feel the need of the company of our 
fellows. 

159. Sociability and the other affectionate inclinations 
have their common source in SYMPATHY 

160. Sympathy is at once the tendency to bring our feel- 
ings into accord with the feelings of our fellows, and to love 
those who have the same feelings, the same nature, that we 
have. 

161. Moralists who, like LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, pre- 
tend to reduce all our feelings to self-love, calumniate 
human nature. The pleasure which accompanies the affec- 
tions is not their cause and the reason of their existence ; 
it is but their consequence, and accompanies only the affec- 
tions which are sincere and true. 

162. The family affections, and the patriotic affections, 
are NATURAL, and do not depend upon choice. Friendship 



258 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

and love, on the contrary, suppose a deliberate preference, 
and this is why they are called ELECTIVE AFFECTIONS. 

163. The ideal inclinations all suppose a certain intellect- 
ual culture ; they are connected with the IDEA OF THE 
TRUE, with the IDEA OF THE GOOD, with the IDEA 
OF THE BEAUTIFUL, and with the IDEA OF GOD. 



THE WILL AND HABIT 



259 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE WILL AND HABIT 

274. Voluntary Activity. — The activity recognized as 
the basis of the actions which manifest themselves, or 
may manifest themselves, through external movements, 
presents, as we know, three forms : instinct, will, and 
habit. 

We have studied instinctive activity (see Chapter 11.) ; 
and we are now to examine voluntary activity and the 
activity of habit. 

275. Definition of the WiU. — The proper domain of 
the will, as of the two other forms of activity, is, as we 
have just remarked, actions properly so called ; that is, 
inward acts followed by effects or external movements. 

The will may be defined : TJie power which the uiind 
has of determming itself, zvith consciotisness and reflec- 
tion, spontaneously and freely, to an aetion of its choiee. 

276. Will in the Child. — Will, thus understood, is, like 
the conscious reason, the prerogative of man. Doubt- 
less the child acts and resolves ; but instinct and sensi- 
bility, and not will, are the principles of his determina- 
tions and acts. The child is a voluntary agent, but he 
does not have will. 

^ 277. Essential Characteristics of the Will. — The essen- 



26o ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

tial characteristics of the will are reflection and, conse- 
quently, liberty. (See Chapter XVII.) Voluntary acts 
are reflective and, consequently, free ; that is, they de- 
pend only upon ourselves. 

278. Relations of the Will to Other Faculties. — The 
will is sharply distinguished from the intelligence and 
the sensibility. It is not within our power to experi- 
ence, or not to experience, a given feeling, or to have 
one thought rather than another ; but, as we under- 
stand the term, we are masters of our will.^ 

To the philosophers who confound will with desire, 
that is, with sensibility, it must be said in reply that, in 
fact, when desire and will are in accord and co-exist, we 
do not confound the attraction exercised by the thing 
desired with the power which we have of yielding to 
that attraction ; that, in the second place, it often 
happens to us to desire without willing ; and, finally, 
that desire and will are in certain cases contradictory ; 
then there is a struggle, a conflict, and at one time it 
is the desire, and at another the will, which carries the 
day. 

To those who confound the will with the intelligence, 
it is to be said, in reply, that if all will is grafted on an 
idea, it is nevertheless not the same thing as the idea. 
How many ideas present themselves to our mind which 
are not followed by volition ! Socrates surely deceived 

1 Tn our Lectures on Pedagogy (Chapter XT.), we have discussed at length the 
differences whicli distinguish the will from the intelligence and the sensibility. 



THE WILL AND FIAIUT 26 1 

himself when he confounded " knowledge " with 
" virtue." It is one thing to think the good, but 
another thing to will it. It is, nevertheless, true that 
the will, though something distinct and irreducible, has 
intimate relations with the sensibility and with the 
intelligence. An analysis of the different elements of a 
voluntary act will bring these relations clearly to light. 

279. Analysis of a Voluntary Act. — Every voluntary 
action, when complete, supposes several elements : 

1. The Conception, or the idea of the act to be 
accomplished. 

2. Deliberation, that is, an examination of the 
motives or of the mobiles which influence us to act in 
one way or in another. 

3. Determination, or resolution, which is the proper 
act of the will, — the firm decision which we make to 
determine ourselves to a given act. 

4. The Execution, which follows the resolution. 
'280. Conception of the Act to be accomplished. — It is 

useless to insist on this first condition of the voluntary 
act. It is evident that we act voluntarily only when, 
the intelligence preceding the will, we have an idea of 
the action to be accomplished and also an idea of a 
contrary action. 

Before saying "I will go out," I represent to myself, 
intellectually, either the walk, or the fact of remaining 
at home. 

281. Deliberation. — The intelligence does not present 



262 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

to US merely the idea of the act to which we are pres- 
ently to determine ourselv^es, but it also suggests to us 
the reasons or motives for which we ought to prefer 
this act to every other. It is pleasant, or we have the 
leisure, or we need to take exercise, etc. ; but all these 
reasons for going out may be counterbalanced by con- 
trary or opposite reasons ; we are expecting a visit, or 
we do not know in what direction to go, etc. 

282. Motives and Mobiles. — But the intelligence does 
not intervene alone in deliberation. The sensibility, 
with its desires and inclinations, enters also into line, 
and throws into the scale the weight of its peculiar 
influence. By going out we are assured of meeting a 
friend whom we desire to see ; or, our walk will lead us 
to a museum where we anticipate the artistic pleasures 
of which we are fond. 

In other words, deliberation bears at the same time 
on reasons of the intellectual order, which are called 
motives, and on reasons of the sensitive order, which 
are called the mobiles of our actions. 

283. Every Voluntary Action is Deliberate. — Some- 
times the deliberation is very long because the decision to 
be taken is of some importance, or because the individ- 
ual who deliberates is of a hesitating disposition. 

Victor Hugo, in the chapter of his Miserables en- 
titled " Une Tempete sous une crane," has admirably 
described that long train of thoughts and feelings which 
a man may traverse before determining himself to act. 



THE WILL AND HA13IT 263 

Sometimes, also, the deliberation is very short, — we 
are in a hurry to act, and must come to a decision at 
once. Volition, in this case, is almost instantaneous, 
but it always supposes that by a rapid glance we have 
compared and weighed the pros and the cons. 

284. Determination. — It is in determination or decis- 
ion that the will essentially resides. Up to a certain 
moment we oscillate, so to speak, between two contrary 
resolutions ; we load in succession the two sides of the 
balance which by turns rise or fall. But there comes a 
moment which is the crisis of the will, so to speak, 
when we no longer hesitate, when we turn resolutely to 
one side and finally determine our conduct. 

Whatever attraction our desires exercise over us, 
whatever influence we grant to our thoughts, it is 
neither our desires nor our thoughts which determine 
us, but we ourselves come to a resolution, sometimes by 
the aid of our desires, and sometimes in opposition to 
them, by certain motives which we place above" con- 
trary motives. 

285. Execution. — It has just been said that a volun- 
tary act consists especially in determination, whether it 
be followed by an effect or not. In general, however, 
execution accompanies volition ; and in order that the 
voluntary act may be really complete, it is not only 
necessary that it should be resolved on, but that an effort 
should be made to execute it. 

The execution itself depends on external circum- 



264 ELExMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

stances independent of my will. My paralyzed hand 
may refuse to obey when I command it to write ; my 
muscles may be too weak to comply with the resolution 
which I have taken to raise a weight which is too 
heavy. But even in cases where the orders of my will 
have not been executed, an order has been given, and 
there have been an effort and a commencement of exe- 
cution. 

Will, not followed by an effect, remains incomplete ; 
it is as yet but an intcntio7i. 

286. Importance of the Will. — It is the will which 
makes the human personality, which really creates the 
Ego ; it is through the will that we are finally our- 
selves. 

" Our authority over ourselves," says Jouffroy,* "■ is 
maintained only by continual exercise. . . . The meas- 
ure of this authority is also that of the human dignity, 
because this authority is the man himself." ^ 

287. Character. — The best man is he who has mind, 
heart, and character. Now it is especially on the will 
that depends this third quality of an accomplished man. 
Character, in fact, supposes a firm will which can resist 
the caprices and the fluctuations of the sensibility ; which 
governs itself and pursues its aim with an inflexible 
tenacity, without allowing itself to be turned aside 
either by the suggestions of other men, or by the solici- 
tations of the passions. 

1 Ch. Jouffruy, Melanges philosophiqucs^ p. 361. 



THE WILL AND HABIT 265 

288. Habit. — Voluntary activity is not the most ordi- 
nary form of human activity. Issuing from instinct, 
activity rises to the voluntary mode only to fall back 
into habit and to repose there. The greater number of 
our actions are derived from habit. We write, we 
speak, we walk, we accomplish most of the actions of 
our life, not with reflection and by a ceaselessly renewed 
effort of our will, but under the mild and feeble 
influence of custom. 

289. Characteristics of Habit. — Habit is then an irre- 
flective, mechanical, and automatic mode of activity. 
It has all the characteristics of instinct, — sureness and 
infallibility ; but it differs from it in its origin. In- 
stinct, so to speak, is really an hereditary habit which 
is transmitted to us through our ancestors and which 
manifests itself immediately in the living being. 
Habit, on the contrary, is acquired ; it results from our 
former acts and supposes a previous will ; it is a second 
nature. 

290. Origin of Habit. — Habit is derived from a repeti- 
tion of the same act, or from a continuation of the 
same impression. Habit, in fact, extends its empire 
not only over our voluntary actions, which by repeating 
themselves gradually lose their characteristic of reflec- 
tive actions, or actions accomplished with effort ; but 
also over our sensations, our intellectual operations, our 
feelings, — in a word, over all our states of conscious- 
ness. Consequently, habit is the result either of a 



266 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

voluntary action accomplished by the individual, or an 
action exerted on that individual by external agents, 
such, for example, as temperature, heat and cold, light, 
etc. 

The more the action has been repeated, and the more 
the impression has been prolonged, the more the habit 
will tend to develop itself and the more force it will ac- 
quire. But it has justly been remarked that the repeti- 
tion of an action, or the continuation of an impression, 
is not necessary to explain the beginning of habit. In 
truth, one single act, or one single impression, suffices 
in order that habit may have a tendency to appear. 

291. Effects of Habit. — Habit exercises different 
effects on the human faculties. On the one hand, it 
facilitates action, supplies the place of the will, sharpens 
the intelligence, and strengthens the inclinations ; on 
the other hand, it blunts the sensations. 

292. It facilitates Action. — Under the empire of 
habit, we come to repeat without effort acts which, at 
first, had been painful and laborious. 

''Through habit we daily accomplish wonders. . . . 
Enter a printing office. All the workmen are very far 
from having the same merit ; but the least intelligent 
and the least capable will select from the case letters 
which they need, and arrange them in place with a 
promptness and sureness of touch which resemble 
instinct. It is instinct, in fact, for it is habit." ^ 

1 J. Simon, Devoir^ p. 364. 



THE WILL AND HABIT 26/ 

293. It supplies the Place of the Will. — Our life would 
be singularly retarded, and our actions would be re- 
duced to a small compass, if we were obliged to reflect 
and to will every time we act. 

" This act of walking, which seems to us so simple, 
would be for man a subject of preoccupation and study 
all his life. We would speak our native tongue with the 
same effort which the use of a foreign language, newly 
and imperfectly learned, would require. The search 
for words and the preoccupation with the syntax would 
prevent our mind from devoting itself wholly to the pur- 
suit of the thought. In writing, we would resemble a 
scholar who painfully follows a copy ; it would be 
necessary to devote ourselves to painting each letter. 
The man the most gifted would not succeed in playing 
five measures on the piano without stopping to take 
breath." 

294. It tends to renew Action. — By the effect of 
habit we not only acquire greater facility in executing 
the acts which it directs, but we are disposed to repro- 
duce them oftener. The force of habit determines a 
tendency or inclination to recommence what has once 
been done. 

295. It sharpens the Intelligence. — Through habit, we 
become more skilled in discerning the elements of per- 
ceptions and in analyzing the sources of our ideas. 
Our intellectual powers are strengthened under its in- 
fluence. 



268 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

** Musicians are able to decompose an orchestra, and 
to distinguish in the general effect the part of each 
instrument. 

" The leader of an orchestra hears all the musicians 
at once, and he hears each of them. ... It is to active 
habit, that is, to practice frequently repeated, that the 
violin-player owes the facility with which he can at the 
same moment read the notes, run over the finger-board 
of his instrument, manipulate the bow, and remain 
sufficiently master of himself to appreciate the effect 
which he produces on his hearers, and to enjoy, as they 
do, and even more than they do, the charm of the 
music. 

" Who reasons well .-* Is it he who knows by heart 
all the rules of Aristotle, or he who, by daily practice, 
has accustomed himself to argumentation .? " ^ 

296. It enfeebles the Consciousness. — But it is the 
nature of habit to produce contradictory effects. If, on 
the one hand, it fortifies the active faculties of percep- 
tion, judgment, and reasoning, and the intellectual 
faculties in general, it must be recollected, on the other 
hand, that it enfeebles, and may gradually suppress, the 
consciousness. 

A phenomenon which is repeated and which is habit- 
ual to us becomes insensible. We do not feel the 
weight of the air which rests upon us. The chemist 
lives among foul odors without smelling them. 

1 J. Simon, op. cit. 



THE WILL AND HABIT 269 

An act which is often renewed becomes unconscious. 
In writing, we have scarcely any consciousness of the 
letters which we form. In playing a piece upon the 
piano, we no longer take account of the movements 
which we execute. 

297. Effects of Habit on the Sensibility. — In its action 
on the sensibility, the influence of habit is also double 
and contradictory : 

1. It blunts the sensations of pleasure and pain. 

2. It increases the strength of the inclinations. 

One of the best-known effects of habit is that it dulls 
our joys and sorrows. We accustom ourselves to evils 
that at first we most detested ; and we become insensi- 
ble to the pleasures that were at first the keenest. On 
the other hand, the affectionate feelings, the inclina- 
tions, and the passions, at least in their beginning, and 
up to a certain limit beyond which satiety begins, aug- 
ment in power under the influence of habit. " Will 
one love society," says Janet, "if he does not often go 
there ^ travel, if he has never travelled .'* or reading, if 
he has not read .? " 

298. The Laws of Habit. — It is thus that habit at one 
time blunts, and at another sharpens, and by turns 
enfeebles or strengthens, our faculties of every class. 
An attempt has been made to reduce these contrary 
effects to one general law, as follows : " Habit enfeebles 
all passive impressions, and develops all the active opera- 
tions." 



2/0 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

" The change in a Uving being which comes to him 
from without, becomes to him more and more foreign ; 
the change which has come to him from himself, 
becomes more and more his own. Receptivity dimin- 
ishes, and spontaneity * increases ; . . . continuity or 
repetition enfeebles /^z-j-j-zV^Vj/,* but exalts activity T ^ 

Thus are reconciled the apparently contradictory re- 
sults of habit, which in fact can augment and strengthen 
the active powers of the soul, only because it diminishes 
by the same act the vivacity of our impressions and of 
whatever there is of the purely passive in our acts. 

299. Importance of Habit. — It is not exaggeration to 
attribute to habit a preponderant part in human life. 
It is habit which consolidates the results of our efforts, 
and spares us from making a constant appeal to the 
costly and laborious exercise of our will. Without it, 
everything must be recommenced over and over again ; 
by means of it, we profit by all that we have done. 
Through habit we doubtless tend to become automata,* 
but intelligent automata who do over again without 
trouble only what we have once willed to do. It is 
habit, as Albert Lemoine* has justly said, "which fixes 
the perpetual becoming of our existence, which arrests 
time that nothing arrests. . . . By means of habit, the 
past in the living being is not abolished. ... By it, the 
past accumulates and is included in the present. It holds 
this past, and still retains it in its possession under this 

1 M. Ravaisson, Dc r Habitude^ p. g. 



THE WILL AND HABIT 



271 



concise form ; it has augmented its substance, and has 
assimilated it to its own nature." 

But habit naturally keeps alive the evil as well as the 
good. It is habit which makes the unity of our life 
and adds the present minute to all those which have 
preceded. According to the use which we have made 
of our activity in the past, shall we be determined in 
the present and in the future to actions which are good 
or bad. Habit is a servitude, since it makes us the 
slaves of our past ; but it has depended upon ourselves 
whether this past shall lead us on to virtue, to knowl- 
edge, and to truth. 

SUMMARY. 

164. Human activity manifests itself under three forms : 
INSTINCT, WILL, and HABIT. 

165. VOLUNTARY ACTIVITY, or WILL, is the power 
which we have of SELF-DETERMINATION WITH RE- 
FLECTION and through a FREE CHOICE. 

166. The will must be confounded neither with DESIRE 
nor with IDEA. 

167. A complete voluntary act comprises four elements : 
the CONCEPTION of the act to be accomplished, DELIB- 
ERATION, DETERMINATION, and EXECUTION. 

168. DELIBERATION brings motives and mobiles face 
to face, that is, the intellectual reasons and the solicitations 
of the sensibility. 



2/5 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

169. DETERMINATION or decision is the characteristic 
act of the will. 

170. EXECUTION, or at least a beginning of execution, 
an effort to accomplish the act to which one has determined 
himself, is the necessary complement of the voluntary act. 

171. The will truly creates the HUMAN PERSON- 
ALITY. Our dignity is measured by the authority which 
we have acquired over ourselves. 

172. HABIT is the IRREFLECTIVE AUTOMATIC 

ACTIVITY which succeeds voluntary activity. 

173. Habit has all the characteristics of INSTINCT, 
but it differs from it in origin ; it is an acquired instinct, a 
second nature. 

174. The power of habit depends on the frequency of the 
repetitions of the same act, or on a prolongation of the same 
impression. 

175. The effect of habit is to FACILITATE ACTION 

and to dispose us to renew it. 

176. It fortifies the active faculties of the intelligence, 
but it ENFEEBLES THE CONSCIOUSNESS. 

177. It enfeebles the sensations of pleasure and pain, but 
it stimulates the inclinations. 

178. In a word, habit ENFEEBLES all the PASSIVE 
IMPRESSIONS, but DEVELOPS all the ACTIVE OPER- 
ATIONS. 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 2^% 



CHAPTER XVII 

LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 

300. Different Senses of the Word Liberty. — Leibnitz 
was right in saying that ''the term liberty is very 
ambiguous." There is no term more widely employed, 
and none more poorly defined. 

The term liberty is first applied to physical actions, 
or material movements which do not encounter ob- 
stacles, but which are accomplished without hindrance. 
The water runs freely, the animal moves about freely. 
This is physical liberty, which is equivalent simply to 
the absence of obstacles. 

Civil liberty and political liberty have also a significa- 
tion wholly their own. Civil liberty is the consecration, 
through law, of the natural rights of man, — property, 
inviolability of person and domicile, etc. Political 
liberty is the complement of rights through which the 
citizen co-operates in the government of his country, — 
liberty of the press, liberty of assemblage, universal 
suffrage, etc. 

Finally, we call moral liberty or free-zvill,"^ the power 
attributed to man of self-determination according to his 
will, of deciding on one course of action rather than 
another, according to his choice ; in a word, as Condillac 



2/4 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

said, " of doing what he does not do, and of not doing 
what he does do." 

301. Free-Will. — It is solely with this last form of 
liberty that we have to concern ourselves. The ques- 
tion to resolve is, whether man, when he acts voluntarily, 
is really capable of resisting the impulses of his sensi- 
bility and of choosing between the different motives 
which his intelligence suggests to him ; or whether, on 
the contrary, his resolutions are the enforced conse- 
quences either of an external necessity, or of fatalities 
of temperament, or, finally, of a psychological deter- 
minism. 

302. The Liberty of Indifference. — It is first neces- 
sary to exclude, in order to state the object of discus- 
sion with precision, certain false interpretations of 
liberty. According to certain philosophers of the 
Middle Age, man has the power to determine his 
conduct without motive ; this is what is called the 
liberty of hidiffcrencc. A classical example is that of 
Buridan's ass, which this philosopher imagined placed 
at an equal distance from two bundles of hay of equal 
size, and equally inviting. The animal, divided between 
these two equal temptations, would have, by virtue of 
the liberty of indifference, the power to direct himself 
at his choice towards one or towards the other. 
Bossuet and Reid have revived the same thesis. 
Liberty, according to them, is determined arbitrarily 
without motive. '' Why," says Reid, '' when you are 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 



275 



presented with several coins of the same value, do you 
take one rather than another ? " It is in this circum- 
stance, that is, in an act absolutely indeterminate, that 
liberty consists. 

It is too easy to reply that the liberty of indifference 
is a pure assumption ; that in our important acts there is 
always a motive according to which we determine our 
conduct ; finally, that the insignificant acts in which 
motive does not appear are in no respects free acts, but 
are acts of caprice or hazard in which free-will has no 
part. 

In fact, voluntary acts always suppose the presence 
of a motive, and we have seen (Chapter XVIL), that 
the resolutions or determinations of the will are always 
reflective, and that they are based on intellectual 
reasons. 

If liberty exists, it is then within the limits created 
by the presence of one or more motives. The liberty 
of indifference would be a pure miracle, which it is 
impossible to conceive. We cannot imagine, in fact, a 
liberty which would determine itself in a void, without 
reason, by a sort of coup d'etat of the will. Either 
liberty does not exist, or else it is and can be but the 
choice between motives which influence us in contrary 
directions. 

303. Objection drawn from Motives. — It is precisely 
from the necessary presence of motives in every free 
determination, that the philosophers who deny free-will 



276 ELEMENTS OF TSYCHOLOGY 

have drawn their most formidable argument. Of 
several motives presented, it is said, it is the strongest 
which will always prevail. The soul is like a balance 
whose pans are loaded ; the beam always inclines in the 
direction of the pan which supports the heavier weight. 
There can, therefore, be no such thing as liberty, for 
the mind is determined by the strongest motive. 

304. Refutation of this Objection. — The objection 
would be irrefutable if we knew in advance what 
motive is the strongest. The weights of the balance 
have a determined value, say of fifty or a hundred 
pounds ; and in whatever way they are placed in the 
pan, they there preserve an influence equal to their 
weight. On the contrary, the motives which present 
themselves to our mind, and which intervene in the 
deliberations of our will, have no absolute value. Who 
has not many times learned by experience that we 
sometimes prefer an insignificant motive to an impor- 
tant motive ? The strength of the motive is derived, in 
part at least, from what our will adds of itself to its 
natural power. The reasons for acting are not decisive 
by themselves ; they become so only through the con- 
sent of the will. The proof is that we cannot know in 
advance and predict what will be, in the will of another 
man or in our own will, the strongest motive. The 
strongest motive is that according to which we deter- 
mine our conduct, but we do not know that it is the 
strongest until after our will has declared itself. The 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 277 

objection drawn from motives, then, leaves the question 
open, and it is nowise proved that motive is the deter- 
mining cause of our action. 

305. Proofs of Liberty. — Are the proof s of liberty of 
a nature to confirm and warrant the common belief? 
This is what we now have to examine. 

These proofs are : (i) The consciousness which we 
have of it, the direct or psychological proof. (2) The 
moral proofs, — the moral concept and the responsibility 
of duty suppose liberty ; — these are the indirect proofs 
based on reasoning and on the consequences involved in 
the denial of liberty. 

306. Consciousness of Liberty. — All the philosophers 
who believe in liberty have appealed to consciousness. 

" Liberty," said Bossuet, " is proved by the evidence 
of feeling and experience. Let each one of us listen 
to himself and consult himself, and he will feel that he 
is free, just as he will feel that he is reasonable." 

In fact, if we will consult ourselves, it seems that lib- 
erty is not a doubtful question. When we deliberate 
on a decision to be taken, we are conscious of the power 
to act in one way or in another. Deliberation would be 
a snare and a deceit if we were not free to decide as we 
please. 

And so in the decision itself, the feeling of liberty is 
present to our consciousness ; we believe that it depends 
upon ourselves to suspend our resolution or to persevere 
in it. The act once accomplished, the same conscious- 



278 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ness persists : we repent of having done what we have, 
or we congratulate ourselves on it ; which proves that 
we are conscious of having been able to act differently. 
In a word, the possibility of doing what we have not 
done, or of not doing what we have done, is an element 
inherent in the consciousness of all our voluntary acts. 

307. Objections of Bayle and Spinoza. — But this con- 
sciousness of liberty has been considered as an illusion 
by a great number of philosophers, notably by Bayle * 
and Spinoza.* 

"If the magnetic needle," says Bayle, "which the 
magnetic force turns toward the nortli, or the weather- 
cock which the wind drives, were conscious of their 
movements without knowing their cause, they would 
ascribe the honor of them to themselves and would 
attribute to themselves their intention." 

Hobbes had already said to the same effect : If the 
top which children spin were conscious of its motion, it 
would think that this motion proceeded from its own 
will, unless it feels who whips it. Thus man does in 
his actions, because he does not know what the whips 
are which determine his will. 

And Spinoza held, in turn, that " the pretended con- 
sciousness of liberty is but ignorance of the causes 
which make us act." 

The comparisons of Hobbes and Bayle are wholly 
inexact, and the explanation of Spinoza is in contradic- 
tion with experience. 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 



279 



In fact, we cannot confound the desire which these 
philosophers attribute to the top and the weathercock, 
with the will, nor the execution of the action with the 
decision which precedes it. 

Now, in the examples cited, there is the hypothesis 
of a desire felt by the weathercock, and the hypothesis 
of a movement executed by the top ; but there is not 
the reflective and deliberate determination which is the 
characteristic of a voluntary action as we experience it 
in ourselves. 

Moreover, it is so far from being true that the con- 
sciousness of liberty is ignorance of the motives which 
make us act, that, on the contrary, this consciousness 
is as much the more vivid as we the better understand 
the motives according to which we determine our con- 
duct. It is only in circumstances where we act with 
reflection, in full consciousness of cause, that we believe 
that we act freely. On the contrary, every time we 
accomplish acts of which we do not render to ourselves 
an account, and are determined by concealed or un- 
known reasons, or by blind impulses, we have no 
thought of attributing these actions to our liberty. It 
would be, then, more just to say that the conscious- 
ness of liberty coincides with the knowledge of the 
motives by which we determine our conduct. The 
feeling of liberty is perhaps an illusion, but surely this 
illusion does not depend on an ignorance of the motives 
which preside over our determination. 



28o ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

308. Moral Proofs. — The moral proofs of liberty are 
indirect proofs which consist in saying, in a general 
way : If liberty does not exist, the moral concepts of 
obligation, duty, and responsibility must disappear ; 
they have no longer a meaning, and every reason for 
their existence is lacking. 

Duty really implies power. The moral law orders me 
to do what is good, but its orders are a mockery if I 
have not the power to obey them. 

Without liberty, responsibility is a chimera. I feel 
myself responsible for whatever I do freely, for my 
faults and my vices ; I accept no res'ponsibility for my 
natural infirmities if I am deformed, nor for my dis- 
eases if they come from nature and not from my acts. 

It is evident that morals and the existence of liberty 
are mutually dependent. If you deny liberty, there are 
merely creatures beautiful, ugly, useful, or dangerous ; 
but there are no longer good or bad, virtuous or vicious, 
men. 

'' No one reprehends those who are naturally de- 
formed," said Aristotle ; " but we blame those who are 
so through the want of exercise, and from negligence. 
The like also takes place in imbecility and mutilation. 
For no one would reproach a man who is blind from 
nature, or disease, or a blow, but would rather pity him ; 
but every one would reprove him who is blind for drink- 
ing wine to excess, or for any other species of intem- 
perance."^ 

1 Aristotle, Ethics^ chapter v., p. 93, 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 281 

309. Universal Belief in Liberty. — All the facts of 
human life give evidence of a universal belief in liberty. 
Without it, it is impossible to explain promises, con- 
tracts, punishments and rewards, exhortations and 
threats, repentance, etc. 

If I am not free, a promise becomes nonsense. In 
fact, I shall either be fatally doomed to do what I prom- 
ise, and then why bind myself by a useless promise ? 
or else I shall be fatally constrained to do the contrary, 
and then the engagement which I make is absurd. 

So also punishments and rewards are legitimate only 
when they are addressed to free agents, really respon- 
sible for their actions. 

"Is not man," says Aristotle, "the father of his 
actions as he is of his children ? This question is 
answered in the affirmative by the conduct of all men 
and by the testimony of legislators. They punish and 
chastise those who commit culpable acts, whenever these 
acts are not the result of constraint or ignorance for 
which the agent is not responsible. On the contrary, 
they honor and reward the authors of virtuous actions ; 
but in all the actions which do not depend on ourselves, 
no one thinks of forcing us to do them. For example, 
every one knows that it would be useless to exhort us 
not to feel warm, or not to suffer from cold or hunger, 
or not to experience certain sensations, for our suffer- 
ings would be none the less on account of these exhor- 
tations." In fact, it would be useless to resort to 



282 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

exhortation or to threats, if the agent to whom we 
address ourselves is not free to modify his resolutions 
and acts in the direction which we point out to him. 

The whole of human life, in its institutions and laws, 
is founded on the belief in liberty. 

** I do not perform an act, I do not pronounce a word, 
which does not suppose a belief in my liberty and in 
that of others. What is the law which men discuss 
and promulgate with formal preparation ? What is the 
tribunal where they call on God to witness their judg- 
ments } What is the scaffold where they take the 
honor and life of their brother in expiation of a crime ? 
Deny the belief in liberty, and society falls to pieces." ^ 

But it will be said that all this simply proves that men 
believe in liberty, but not that they are right in believ- 
ing in it. We reply, that a fact so universal has many 
chances of being in conformity with reality ; and that, 
after all, it is sufficient for us to believe naturally in 
liberty and to be invincibly led to believe in it, even if 
the arguments of philosophers were to succeed in 
inspiring us with some doubts in the solidity of our 
belief. 

310. Different Forms of Fatalism. — At all times 
liberty has been called in question and denied : but 
fatalism, or the denial of liberty, has taken, either in re- 
ligious beliefs or in philosophical systems, a great num- 
ber of forms. 

311. Theological Fatalism. — Among the ancients and 

^ J. Simon, Lc Devoir. 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 283 

among the Mohammedans, in the pantheistic philoso- 
phy, a place is made above humanity for a superior 
force or divinity whose will governs all events and 
forbids to man all liberty. This mysterious power is 
what the Greeks and the Romans called destiny,/^///;;/. 
Whatever efforts man may make to struggle against 
destiny, he goes where destiny leads him. The Mussul- 
mans say, " It was written." 

Even in the Christian religion, there remain some 
traces of this conception of destiny, presented, it is 
true, under the feature of a personal God, the absolute 
master of all the events of this world. '' Man is rest- 
less, and God directs him." 

The idea of ^7^ace * the first condition of virtue, that 
is, of a mysterious inspiration of God predisposing his 
privileged creatures to the good, has direct relations 
with fatalism. In some Christian sects, belief in pre- 
destination * has become a dogma. 

These are the old forms of fatalism, and modern 
science does not need to occupy itself with them. 

312. Physiological Fatalism. — Other fatalists have 
invoked, as determining causes of human actions, cli- 
mate, race, temperament, and, finally, the physiological 
conditions of man's moral faculties. 

''Without a material modification in the nervous 
system, and also in the brain," says Moleschott,* "vol- 
untary movements do not take place. 

"But this modification comes from without. The 



284 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

modification stands to the excitation, as an effect to 
the cause which produces it. 

"This reason makes it appear, in a manner wholly 
convincing, that the movement does not emanate from 
a so-called free will. 

*' It will be better to say, that the will is the neces- 
sary expression of a state of the brain produced by 
external influences. 

" Man is the resultant of his ancestors, of his nurse, 
of the place and the moment, of the air and the weather, 
of the sound and the light, of his diet and his clothing. 
His will is the consequence of all these causes ; it is tied 
to a law of nature which we recognize in its manifesta- 
tion, as a planet to its orbit, or a plant to the soil on 
which it grows." ^ 

These are exaggerations which nothing can justify. 
Surely temperament, physiological conditions, and ex- 
ternal influences, limit the human will and contract the 
circle in which it moves, but all these causes, whatever 
may be their power, by no means suppress liberty. 
Man is dependent on nature ; but he finds in himself a 
point of support for resisting external influences and 
for maintaining his personal independence. 

313. Psychological Fatalism or Determinism. — The 
truly modern and scientific form of fatalism is psycho- 
logical determinism. 

We have already stated what reply can be made to its 

1 Moleschott, La Circulation dc la Vie, t. ii., p. 1.9. 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 285 

mode of reasoning, founded exclusively on the neces- 
sary relation of cause to effect, and on the absolutely 
decisive influence which motives, that is, causes, exer- 
cise on the actions which are their effects. 

Doubtless something must be granted to the deter- 
minists ; we must recognize with them that at a given 
moment of our existence our liberty is not entire and 
absolute. We have not the power to break brusquely 
with our past, and to absolve ourselves from all solidar- 
ity with what we have previously done. No, we must 
count with the influence of our habits and our inveter- 
ate tendencies ; but even under these conditions there 
remains a part for our will to play. 

The determinists say that liberty is a solution of 
continuity in the necessary concatenation of effects 
and causes. They would be right, if we were speaking 
of a liberty absolutely independent, indeterminate, and 
absolved from every condition. But the will is pre- 
cisely the cause which is at work in our free resolutions ; 
and this efficient cause* determines itself in view of 
another cause which is the end to be attained, or the 
purpose pursued with reflection ; in a word, the final 
cause of our action. 

314. Liberty and Reason. — Liberty is, then, nothing 
other than the power of acting in accordance with ideas, 
or, in other terms, the power of obeying the reason. The 
more reasonable we are, the freer we are. We are then 
free, in the sense of becoming more free, of incessantly 



286 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

enlarging our liberty. It depends upon our efforts to 
absolve ourselves more and more from the impulses of 
instinct, the solicitations of the sensibility, the caprices 
of irreflection, and to be more capable of possessing 
and governing ourselves, by augmenting the part of 
reflection and reason in our conduct. 



SUMMARY. 

179. MORAL LIBERTY is to be confounded neither 
with physical liberty, civil Uberty, nor political liberty. 

180. Moral liberty, or FREE-WILL, is the power of de- 
termining ourselves voluntarily to an action which we choose. 

181. It is not exact to say that liberty determines itself 
arbitrarily, as the partisans of the LIBERTY OF INDIF- 
FERENCE understand it. 

182. Liberty determines itself ACCORDING TO A 
MOTIVE ; but this motive becomes the strongest only 
because the will CHOOSES it. 

183. The proofs of liberty are the DIRECT CON- 
SCIOUSNESS which we have of it, and the consequences 
which the denial of liberty involves, especially IN 
MORALS. 

184. We are conscious of being free at the moment when 
we deliberate, when we decide on a course of conduct, and 
when we execute a voluntary action. This feeling of our 
liberty persists even after the action has been accomplished. 



LIBERTY AND DETERMINISM 28^ 

185. The consciousness of liberty is so far from being 
ignorance of the motives which cause us to act, that it is, on 
the contrary, the more vivid and the stronger as we have a 
better knowledge of the reasons according to which we 
determine our conduct. 

186. The moral notions of OBLIGATION, DUTY, RE- 
SPONSIBILITY, MERIT and DEMERIT, are necessarily 
connected with the hypothesis of liberty. On the supposi- 
tion that liberty does not exist, every system of morality 
falls to pieces. 

187. Most of the facts of human life, the promises, ex- 
hortations, threats, rewards and punishments, etc., give proof 
of the UNIVERSAL BELIEF in liberty. 

188. Fatalism, or the denial of liberty, has taken different 
forms ; sometimes it is theological, sometimes physiological, 
and sometimes psychological. Psychological FATALISM 
is called DETERMINISM. 

189. Whatever influence we ascribe to the motives and 
the mobiles between which our will chooses and decides, 
there remains a field of action, limited, it is true, for liberty. 

190. Through effort and the development of REFLEC- 
TION and REASON, we may enlarge our liberty. 



288 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER XVIII 

CONCLUSION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY. MIND AND 
BODY. 

315. Rational Psychology. — The question of the exist- 
ence of the soul, that is, of an immaterial principle, 
distinct and independent of the body, does not come 
within the domain of empirical psy.chology ; it belongs 
to rational psychology, or, in a word, to metaphysics.* 
Empirical psychology grasps only successive facts ; 
being an instrument of observation, it can merely 
describe, enumerate, and classify phenomena ; it cannot 
directly attain to the existence of what Kant called a 
noumcn,'^ that is, a principle superior and inaccessible to 
experience, a soul-substance, and the cause of thought. 

Without wishing to go beyond the limits of this 
course, it is, nevertheless, necessary that we state, in 
concluding, the question of spiritualism and material- 
ism, that is, of the two great doctrines which give two 
contrary solutions to the problem of the nature of the 
thinking principle, some separating it from the body, 
and others confounding it with the body. 

316. Spiritualism and Materialism. — At all times, in 
fact, two contrary hypotheses have been face to face in 
the schools of philosophy. The first claims the great 



CONCLUSION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY 289 

names of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, 
etc. ; it invokes the testimony of religion ; it is partic- 
ularly a popular belief, a belief of common sense. 

The second is authorized by a few philosophers, as 
Epicurus,* Holbach,* and Helvetius * ; by the phi- 
losophers of the eighteenth century in general ; and 
especially by modern physiologists whom the exclusive 
study of the brain has often led to deny the existence 
of the soul. 

317. Duality of Human Nature. — It is undeniable that 
a natural instinct leads us to admit the duality of our 
being. In all times men have believed spontaneously 
in the distinction between the physical and the moral. 
On the one hand, they feel themselves riveted to mat- 
ter ; and on the other, they aspire to the infinite, to the 
ideal, to the immaterial world. This Racine expressed 
in these verses imitated from the Holy Scriptures : — 

'* My God, what a cruel war ! Within me I find two 
men. . . . The one, all spirit and wholly divine, wills 
that, ceaselessly drawn toward heaven and encompassed 
by eternal blessings, I count all else as nothing ; while 
the other, by its baleful weight, holds me bent towards 
the earth." ^ 

"What is the soul .^^ " asked a child of his mother. 
And, giving the reply himself, he added : " I have found 
it. It is with the soul that I love you." 

From this duality of our being, from these contrary 

1 Racine, Cantiqiies spiritticls, cantique iii. 



290 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

and even contradictory tendencies, man has naturally 
been led to infer the co-existence in himself of two 
principles, mind and body. 

318. Testimony of Consciousness. — To justify this 
distinction, reflective thought has believed that it finds 
a solid support in consciousness. The consciousness, 
according to Descartes and the philosophers of his 
school, directly reveals the existence of the soul. 

" From the very fact that I know with certainty that 
I exist, and that, nevertheless, I do not observe that 
anything else necessarily belongs to my nature or to my 
essence, except that I am a thing which thinks, I con- 
clude very correctly that my essence consists in this 
alone, — that I am a thing which thinks, or a substance 
whose whole essence or nature is but thought. 

"And though perhaps, or rather certainly, as I just 
now said, I have a body to which I am strongly tied ; 
nevertheless, seeing that on the one hand I have a clear 
and distinct idea of myself, so far as I am merely a 
thing which thinks and is unextended, and that, on the 
other, I have a distinct idea of body so far as it is 
merely a thing extended which does not think ; it is 
certain that I, that is, my soul, through which I am 
what I am, is entirely and truly distinct from my body, 
and that it may be and may exist without me." ^ 

For Descartes, then, the soul was more intelligible 
and easier to know than the body. 

1 Descartes, Sixihnc Meditation. 



CONCLUSION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY 291 

But it is very easy to reply to him that the body, 
whose non-existence he admits by hypothesis, neverthe- 
less does not cease to exist because it is expedient for 
him to suppose that it does not exist. The distinction 
in consciousness between the two ideas, that of the body 
and that of the soul, is not equivalent to the real sepa- 
ration of the two existences. It is useless for Descartes 
to say that the essence of his being is simply to think ; 
this, on his part, is a pure assumption which does not 
suppress the real fact, to wit, that the body always 
accompanies our thought and exists with it. 

319. Distinction between Psychological Phenomena and 
Physiological Phenomena. — We must then put aside, as 
without value, the Cartesian argument, and find else- 
where, if it is possible, the legitimate basis of spiritual- 
istic beliefs. 

Will the difference between psychological and phys- 
iological phenomena, on which we have no longer to 
dwell (see Chapter I.), suffice to attain this end ? 

Assuredly these two orders of phenomena are pro- 
foundly distinct, the first immediately illumined by the 
consciousness, the other" plunged in the night of the 
unconscious. But from the difference between the two 
series of phenomena is it legitimate to infer a distinc- 
tion between the causes which produce them ? What 
reply shall be made to the materialists who will say to 
us : Doubtless consciousness is something different 
from the unconscious movement of the particles of 



292 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

matter, and from the physical vibrations of the cerebral 
molecules ; but it is the consequence of them, and 
depends upon them. Do we not see every day, in the 
transformations of matter, a succession of very differ- 
ent phenomena, but nevertheless issuing from one and 
the same principle ? Is not motion transformed into 
light and into heat ? Why might not motion be trans- 
formed into thought ? 

320. Contradictory Attributes of Matter and Thought. 
— The sole conclusive reason which can be opposed to 
the materialist is that psychological phenomena and 
physiological phenomena are not only different, but 
contradictory. There is an absolute contradiction 
between the attributes of matter and the attributes of 
thought. 

Matter being what we conceive that it is, a collection 
of divisible and innumerable molecules, it does not 
seem possible that it can be the principle of thought, 
whose simplicity or unity and also identity are revealed 
to us by the consciousness. 

321. Unity of the Mind. — All the philosophers, from 
Plato and Aristotle to Kant and Condillac, have asserted 
the unity of thought. The intellectual operations con- 
sist in reducing plurality to unity. 

To judge is to unite several ideas. To reason is to 
unite several judgments. The fact is undeniable ; what 
conclusions can be drawn from it ? Matter, being essen- 
tially divisible, composed of parts, cannot be, we are 



CONCLUSION OF THE I'SVCIIOLOGV 293 

assured, the principle of thought, since the subject of 
thought is necessarily one and simple. 

Condillac has stated this argument with force and 
precision. "The body," he says, *'as far as it is a 
complex whole, cannot be the subject of thought. 
Shall we really divide thought into all the substances 
of which it is composed ? In the first place, this will 
not be possible if it is but a perception, one and indivis- 
ible ; and in the second place, we must still abandon 
this supposition if thought is formed of a certain num- 
ber of perceptions. Let A, B, and C be three sub- 
stances which enter into the composition of bodies and 
are distributed into three different perceptions. I ask 
where the comparison will be made. It will not be in 
A, since we cannot compare a perception which we have 
with one which we do not have. For the same reason 
it will be neither in B nor in C. We must then admit 
a point of reunion, a substance which is at the same 
time a simple and indivisible subject of these three per- 
cej^tions, and consequently distinct from the body, — in 
a word, a soul." ^ 

322. Identity of the Mind. — An argument of the 
same kind is the one which is drawn from personal iden- 
tity. In reality, notwithstanding the perpetual mobility 
of our states of consciousness, it is to the Ego that we 
refer this whole succession of feelings and thoughts. 
The identity of the Ego is verified by the memory 

1 Condillac, Connaissance humaine^ part i,, ch. i. 



294 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

which reveals it, and which at the same time could not 
be explained without it ; for memory evidently supposes 
the continuity of one and the same existence. On the 
other hand, responsibility no longer exists if we do not 
admit the identity of the moral subject. I am respon- 
sible to-day for what I did yesterday, and for what I did 
a year or two years ago, only because I am the same 
person. 

Now, matter is ever changing and renewing itself in 
all its particles. An incessant change of molecules 
takes place between our body and external bodies. This 
is what the physiologists call the vital vortex. 

"In living bodies," says Cuvier, "no molecule re- 
mains in place, — all are coming and going successively ; 
life is a continual vortex whose direction, however com- 
plicated it may be, remains constant, even as the kind 
of molecules which are carried along in it, but not the 
individual molecules themselves. On the contrary, the 
actual matter of the living body will presently be there 
no longer, but yet it is the depository of the force 
which will constrain the future matter to go in the same 
direction in which it goes." 

323. The Soul is a Force. — Another argument of the 
spiritualists consists in contrasting the inertia of matter, 
incapable of self-movement, with the spontaneity of 
thought, capable of self-determination. 

"Every material molecule," says Janet, "receives 
action and communicates it to another molecule, but 



CONCLUSION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY 295 

does not itself produce it. Every movement is the 
sequel and the transformation of prior movements. 
Matter is inerty that is, incapable of changing its state ; 
when at rest, it remains at rest ; when in motion, it 
remains in motion." ^ 

How then can we confound with inert matter the 
principle of human will and liberty } 

324. Objections of the Materialists. — Whatever may 
be the force of the arguments which we have just 
stated, it must be acknowledged that they do not suffice 
to convince the materialists, nor to fix the spiritualist 
beliefs on a positive basis, sheltered from all objection. 
In this question neither the reason for, nor the reason 
against, can pretend to absolute certitude ; and perhaps 
materialism is even better refuted by the weakness of 
its own arguments than by the force of the arguments 
against it. 

325. General Objections. — The materialists, especially 
in the ancient schools, have laid great stress on the in- 
fluence which age, decrepitude, and sickness exercise on 
the development of thought. 

The moral faculties grow with the physical forces, and 
also decline and become extinct with them ; illness 
abates them ; and our mind is at the mercy of an attack 
of fever. How, then, not believe, it is said, in the iden- 
tity of two forces which, in their development, follow a 
parallel course, and which grow, weaken, and perish to- 
gether } 

1 p. Janet, Traite elcmentairc de philosophic^ i., p. T^yj. 



296 ELEMENTS OF rSYCIIOLOGY 

All these objections are connected with the wide 
theme of the influence of the physical on the spiritual. 
Indeed, it cannot be denied that the intellectual func- 
tions are in great part dependent on our physical 
states. An enlightened spiritualism will in no wise 
deny the correspondence between the physical and 
the moral. 

Bossuet said, " Man is one and the same organic 
whole ; " but to the influence of the physical on the 
moral, the spiritualists properly oppose a series of con- 
trary facts, all of which tend to- establish the influence 
of the spiritual on the physical. The imagination, the 
passions, will, and force of character, react on health 
and the physiological functions, and thus give proof of a 
spiritual force distinct from the physical forces, since, 
to a certain extent, it can subject them to its control. 
From all this it may doubtless be inferred that body 
and mind are intimately connected, and that between 
them there are profound relations and a mutual depend- 
ence ; but it would be going beyond the legitimate 
consequences of these facts if we were to infer from 
them that the moral faculties are derived from the phys- 
ical faculties. ''All would proceed in the same way," 
says Marion, " if the body were but the companion and 
instrument of the moral life in this world." 

326. Relation between Brain and Thought. — The argu- 
ments of contemporary materialists hardly insist longer 
on the general relations between the physical life and 



CONCLUSION OF THE PSYCFIOLOGY 



297 



the moral life ; they bear almost exclusively on the 
intimate relations between brain and thought. 

Here is the doctrine enunciated in all its clearness : 
'' I think every scientist," says Charles Vogt,* *'is bound 
to think that all the faculties which we comprise under 
the name of the properties of the soul are but functions 
of the cerebral substance ; and if I may borrow a famil- 
iar comparison, that these thoughts have almost the 
same relation with the brain that the bile has with the 
liver, or the urine with the kidneys." 

Thought, then, is a function, and even, according to 
the brutal comparison of Charles Vogt, " a secretion of 
the brain." 

In their attempts to justify this assertion, the mate- 
rialists invoke the results of cerebral analysis. They 
remind us over and over again that the very existence of 
thought is conditioned on the existence of a brain ; and 
that the development, the degree of thought, corre- 
sponds precisely to certain states of the brain. It is 
true that on this point wide differences of opinion are 
expressed, and that the materialists have come to no 
understanding among themselves as to the cerebral 
qualities which are the basis of thought. 

According to some, it is the iveight of the brain ; 
according to others, it is the volume; according to still 
others, it is the chemical constitiLtion of the brain, — 
*' without phosphorus, no thought ; " or according to 
others still, the greater or less complexity of the cere- 



298 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

bral circiLrnvoliitions} Appeal has even been made to 
the form and the tempej^ature of the cerebral matter. 

327. Criticism of this Objection. — Assuredly no one 
thinks of denying that the brain is the organ or instru- 
ment of thought. Just as we do not see without eyes, 
so we cannot think without the brain ; and just as we 
see imperfectly with eyes injured by disease or by some 
lesion, so we think clearly only with a sound brain, a 
brain whose constitution remains normal. 

But we shall immediately perceive, by the large num- 
ber of conditions and cerebral qualities which they 
invoke one after another, that the materialists them- 
selves recognize that they have not succeeded in deter- 
mining, with precision, the cerebral principle of thought. 
If they appeal sometimes to the chemical constitution 
of the brain, and at others to the weight, volume, and 
to the complexity of its circumvolutions, it is because, 
in fact, experience contradicts their absolute theories 
on every point. It is said, for example, that in order to 
be a great mind, one must have a brain which weighs 
more than fifteen hundred grammes ; and yet the facts 
are often in contradiction with this assertion. The 
truth is that the analysis of the brain is still incom- 
plete and obscure on more than one point, and that 
science has not yet illumined the mysterious functions 
of that organ so delicate and so complex. 

Moreover, had the materialists succeeded in coming 

1 On this subject see the excellent book of Paul Janet, Le Cerveau et la Pensee. 



CONCLUSION OF THE rSYCIIOLOGV 



299 



to an agreement, and in determining with exact- 
ness the relations between the brain and thought, 
they would indeed have shown the correspondence 
between physiological phenomena and spiritual phenom- 
ena, and would have shown that the brain is one of 
the conditions of thought ; but they would not yet have 
proved that it is the only condition. They would have 
made it apparent that the intelligence and the sensibil- 
ity cannot do without the brain, just as the musician 
and the artist cannot do without an instrument ; but 
they would not have demonstrated that the brain is the 
very cause and principle of thought. Let us admit, 
if so desired, that the spiritualists cannot argue in 
favor of the existence of the soul by any decisive, posi- 
tive, and truly scientific argument ; but we must not 
fail to recollect, also, that the materialists have not at 
their disposal absolute and irrefutable proofs to justify 
their thesis. 

328. Substitution of One Part of the Brain for Another. 
— Let us observe, moreover, that the analysis of the 
brain is not always as favorable as the partisans of 
materialism assert, to the doctrine which they maintain. 
The facts which they allege are often in contradiction 
with their theories. 

"If the different intellectual operations cease," says 
Ravaisson,* " when the brain is destroyed or even seri- 
ously injured, nevertheless, provided life continues, they 
become re-established after a longer or shorter time. 



300 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

This is one of the most important results of the 
experiments of Flourens.* According to these ex- 
periments, for the cerebral hemispheres, which are 
the widest expansion of the nervous system, there 
were substituted, after a little time, the striated 
bodies, the expansion immediately above the spinal 
marrow, whose normal function is to serve the in- 
stinctive operations. 

" It has, then, not only been proved true that a small 
part of the brain may, in case of need, suffice for all its 
functions ; but it has been proved true that for the 
whole brain there may be substituted, even in the 
higher functions which properly belong to it, the parts 
of the nervous system which, in their normal and 
habitual state, serve only the functions which are proxi- 
mately inferior. This proves that it is not the organ 
which causes the function, as the materialists claim, 
but that it is the function or the action which, under 
certain physical conditions, subjects and appropriates 
the organ." ^ 

329. What is Matter ? — It follows from the examina- 
tion of the arguments for materialism, that its parti- 
sans are very far from having demonstrated the truth of 
their theory. The question of the existence of the soul 
thus remains an open question which science does not 
forbid us to solve in accordance with our natural aspira- 
tions, our feeling, and the popular belief. Doubt- 

1 F. Ravaisson, Rapport siir la philosophie die xix. siecle^ p. 189. 



CONCLUSION OF THE TSYCHOLOGV 3OL 

less we seem to be condemned not to know the nature 
of the principle of thought, and never to attain at least 
a scientific conception of this principle. But in our 
turn, taking the offensive against the materialists, may 
we not remind them that they themselves have no 
definite idea of matter ? The brain, you say, is not 
merely the condition of thought, but it is its cause and 
substance ! But what is the brain itself ? How do 
we know it, if not through thought itself ? Positively, 
what are the fibres and nervous cells, if not the repre- 
sentations of thought and of the conceptions of our 
mind ? To those who say all is matter, we have the 
right to reply, with more logic and certitude, all is 
thought ! And to those who say. What is mind ? we 
reply, What is matter ? 

SUMMARY. 

191. The question of the EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL 
does not fall within the domain of empirical psychology; it 
belongs to natural psychology or metaphysics. 

192. At all times, two contradictory doctrines with refer- 
ence to the nature of the thinking principle have been 
confronted with each other, — SPIRITUALISM and MA- 
TERIALISM. 

193. A natural instinct leads us to admit the DUALITY 
OF HUMAN NATURE and the co-existence of MIND and 
BODY. 



302 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

194. The arguments of the spirituaUsts are not wholly con- 
clusive. THE REASONING OF DESCARTES, based on 
the distinction between the idea of thought and the idea 
of body, in no wise proves the real separation of mind and 
body. 

195. PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA and PHYSIO- 
LOGICAL PHENOMENA are profoundly distinct ; but it 
is impossible to infer a separation of causes from the dif- 
ference in effects. 

196. There is more force in the argument which consists 
in showing that the attributes of matter and the attributes of 
thought are CONTRADICTORY. 

197. Matter is DIVISIBLE and EXTENDED; thought 
supposes a SIMPLE and UNIQUE principle. 

198. Matter is CHANGEABLE and is ever RENEWING 
itself in a sort of vital vortex ; the mind remains IDEN- 
TICAL. 

199. Matter is INERT; the mind acts SPONTANE- 
OUSLY and FREELY. 

200. The arguments of the materialists by no means suf- 
fice to prove that the soul does not exist. 

201. The correlation between physical states and the 
development of the mind only proves the NECESSARY 
CO-EXISTENCE of thought and matter. 

202. The BRAIN is doubtless the INSTRUMENT OF 

THOUGHT, but nothing proves that it is the principle of 
thought. 



CONCLUSION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY 303 

203. The peculiar power of the thinking principle mani- 
fests itself in the fact that certain parts of the brain may be 
substituted, as organs of thought, for other parts when the 
latter have been destroyed. 

204. The materialists who say they are not able to con- 
ceive mind are themselves incapable of DEFINING MAT- 
TER and of proving its existence. 



INDEX 



OF PROPER NAMES AND TECHNICAL TERMS CONTAINED IN 
THIS VOLUME AND MARKED WITH AN ASTERISK. 



Absolute. A philosophical term signifying that which is not relative, 
which is not contingent, but which exists apart from all condition. The 
absolute is the basis of all the systems of philosophy which do not start 
from experience. 

.ZBsthetics. The sentiments which are connected with the idea of 
the beautiful. The term is of Greek origin and signifies, etymologically, 
sensible, or that which is connected with feelmo-. By derivation this word 
has been exclusively employed to designate the artistic feelings, y^sthet- 
ics is the science of the beautiful, the philosophy of the fine arts. 

Alcibiades (450-404 B. C). A celebrated Athenian, a disciple of 
Socrates, 

Altruism. A wholly modern term, invented by the positiv^ists to 
designate the love of others {alteri, others), as egoism expresses the love 
of self [ego, I). 

Analysis. The decomposition of a whole into its parts, whether 
of a body whose constituent elements are to be determined, or of a com- 
plex idea, or of a complicated fact whose different parts are to be dis- 
tinguished. 

Aphasia. The abolition of articulate language, notwithstanding the 
persistence of the faculty of expression. 

Aphorisms. A term applied to maxims or sentences which contain 
much meaning in a few words. 

A priori. A logical term, denoting what is admitted by virtue of a 
principle of the reason previous to all experience, as distinguished from 
what is inferred from experience. A priori demonstrations proceed from 
cause to effect. 

A posteriori, that is, after experience. A posteriori reasoning pro- 
ceeds from effect to cause. 



3o6 INDEX 

Aristotle (384-322 B. C). A Greek philosopher, a pupil of Plato, 
the preceptor of Alexander the Great, the founder of a school of philoso- 
phy at Athens called the Lyceum. His doctrine is known as the peri- 
patetic, so called from his method of teaching, which took place while 
walking. His influence was great during the Middle Age when people 
swore only by Aristotle. His researches embraced all parts of science, 
and he carried into all his investigations the positive spirit and the method 
of observation and experiment. His Ethics, or treatise on morals, is the 
most valuable part of his works. Education is discussed in the Politics. 

Arnobius ( -326). A Christian theologian of the third century. 

Attributes. Synonymous with qualities : the intelligence, the sensi- 
bility, and the will are the moral attributes of human nature. In a narrower 
sense, attributes is a metaphysical term and applicable exclusively to the 
Divine nature. 

Augustine, Saint (354-430). Bishop of Hippo, one of the Fathers 
of the Church. 

Automatism. The characteristic of beings that move mechanically, 
without intelligence and will. 



Bain, Alexander (1818- ). A contemporary Scottish philoso- 
pher. His principal works are, " The Senses and the Intelligence," " The 
Emotions and the Will," and "Education as a Science." 

Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire (1805- ). A French philosopher 
and statesman, and translator of the works of Aristotle. 

Bayle, Pierre (1647-1706). A celebrated French writer, and author 
of the Dictioniiaire historiqiie et critique, which has chiefly made his repu- 
tation and which is still consulted with profit. His philosophical ideas 
tend to scepticism, and he has often been considered as the precursor of 
Voltaire. 

Berkeley, George (1684-1753). Irish bishop and philosopher, cele- 
brated for his idealism, which he has set forth in his " Dialogues." At- 
tempted to found a college at Newport, R. I. 

Berthelot, P. E. M. (1827- ). A contemporary French scientist. 

Bonald, L. G. A. (1754-1840). A French philosopher, a theoretical 
advocate of absolute monarchy in his book Legislation primitive. It is he 
who defined man as an intelligence served by organs. His philosophy is 
spiritualist and Catholic. 



INDEX 307 

Bossuet, J. B, (1627-1704). A great French writer and theologian, 
who has contributed to philosophy proper by his Traite de la comiaissance 
de Dieu et de soi-vieme, composed for the education of the Dauphin. 

Buridan, Jean (iSisP-iSSS). A philosopher of the Middle Age, a 
defender of nominalism, who was much interested in the question of free- 
will. It was he who stated the hypothetical case of the ass pressed by 
the double need of drinking and eating, and not knowing what resolution 
to take. The dne de Buridan has remained proverbial. 

Categories. A logical term denoting the different species of our 
ideas, as the categories of substance, of quality, etc. Aristotle distin- 
guished ten categories. 

Cells. A term in natural history, denoting anatomical elements 
which unite with fibres to form tissues. 

Cerebral circumvolutions. The sinuous furrows presented by 
the upper surface of the brain. 

Cheselden, William (17 10- ). An English surgeon, celebrated 
for his skill in removing cataracts from persons born blind. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834). An English philosopher 
and poet. 

Comte, Auguste (i 798-1857). A French philosopher and mathe- 
matician, founder of the positivist school, of which Littre, after Auguste 
Comte, was the most illustrious representative. 

Conceptualism. A philosophical doctrine of the Middle Age, 
made iliustrious by Abelard, which consisted in holding, with reference 
to nom'malism and realism^ that general ideas, or concepts, had a real 
value, but that they represented only the relations of things. 

Condillac, E. B. (1715-1780). A French philosopher and teacher. 
In 1757 he became preceptor of the infant Duke of Parma, and composed 
for this occasion a Coiirs d^etitde in sixteen volumes. His most impor- 
tant philosophical works are his Essai sur Vorigine des connaissanccs 
hzimaines, and his Traite des sensations. Condillac belonged to the sens- 
ualist school, and held that all our ideas are derived from the senses. 
His doctrine remained dominant in French philosophy till 1815. 

Contingent. The contrary of the necessary, that which happens 
(from the Latin contingere) or which may not happen. 

Cuvier, Baron (i 769-1832). A French naturalist, author of a large 
number of works : Lemons d^anatoniie comparee, Discoiirs snr les revolu- 
tions du globe, Recherches sur les aniniaux fossiles, Regne animal distribiie 
d\ipres son organisation. 



308 INDEX 

Daltonism. A visual infirmity which prevents one from distinguish- 
ing colors, so called from Dal ton, an English physician (i 766-1844), who 
was afflicted with it and described it. 

Danaides. The fifty daughters of Danaus, who, according to the 
mythological account, were condemned, in the infernal regions, to keep a 
leaky barrel full of water, for having murdered their husbands. 

Democritus (470.^-351 .? B.C.). The author of the atomic philoso- 
phy, and the precursor of Epicurus. 

Descartes, Rene (i 596-1650). The greatest of the French philoso- 
phers. It was he who founded modern philosophy by substituting for 
the principle of authority the method of free examination. His chief 
works are the Discoiirs de la Methode and the Meditations metaphysiqiies. 
His doctrine is an idealistic spiritualism. Descartes was also a mathema- 
tician and a scientist — in a word, a universal scholar. 

Degradation. The progressive diminution of light, shade, and 
color, to indicate successive degrees of remoteness. 

Determinism. A philosophical and scientific term. In nature, the 
well-founded belief in the necessary action of the causal relation ; in 
psychology, the questionable belief in the irresistible power of motive in 
our voluntary determinations. 

Diderot, Denis (1713-1784). A great French writer, who touched 
on all subjects, and who, in philosophy, hesitated between materialism 
and pantheism. 

Edict of the Praetor. Roman law pronounced by the praetor, who 
was charged with the administration of justice. 

Efficient (cause). A philosophical term signifying the cause which 
precedes the effect and actually produces it. 

Egger (1813- ). A French Hellenist, and professor in the Sor- 
bonne. 

Elective (affinities). A term in chemistry and physiology denoting 
the natural forces which unite bodies and organs ; used metaphorically, 
in a moral sense, to designate the affections which represent a choice, an 
eleciio)i. 

Entity. A term in scholastic philosophy ; that which constitutes the 
substance of a thing, and might exist apart from the thing itself. 

Epicurus (342-270 B.C.). A Greek philosopher who revived the 
atomic theories of Democritus, the founder of a school of morals that 
made of pleasure the purpose of life and that was opposed to stoicism. 



INDEX 309 

Fibres. Anatomical elements, distinguished as muscular fibres and 
nervous fibres. 

Fielding, Henry ( 1707-1754). A celebrated English novelist, author 
of " Tom Jones," " Joseph Andrews," " Jonathan Wild," " Amelia." 

Final (cause), as distinguished from efficient cause ; the cause which 
is the purpose, the end of our actions, the final destination of things. 

Flourens, M. J. P. (1794-1867). A French physiologist. His prin- 
cipal works are Fonctiom du systeme nerveiix, and De rinsiinct et de 
Vintelligence des animaiix. 

Fouillee. A contemporary French philosopher, the author of a large 
number of works : La philosophie de Socrate, La philosophic de Platon. 

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790). An American moralist and 
statesman. 

Gamier, Adolphe ( 1801-1864). A French philosopher of the sens- 
ualist school, professor in the Sorbonne, the author of a book too little 
known, Traite desfacultes de Vame. 

Golconda. A city of Hindostan, formerly a famous entrepot of dia- 
monds and precious stones. 

Grace. A theological term, inward assistance granted by Heaven for 
the accomplishment of good and the sanctification of the soul, granted to 
some and refused to others. 

Hamilton, Sir William (1788-1856). A Scotch philosopher, 
author of " Lectures on iMetaphysics and Logic " and " Discussions on 
Philosophy and Education." 

Harpagon. The principal character in Moliere's comedy, UAvare. 

Hartmann, von, Edward (1840- ). A contemporary German 
philosopher, author of " The Philosophy of the Unconscious." 

Helvetius, Claude Adrien (171 5-1770- A French philosopher 
belonging to the materialistic school ; author of the book De Vesprit. 

Hemispheres. A term in anatomy ; the two lateral halves of the 
brain and the cerebellum. 

Hobbes, Thomas (i 588-1679). An English philosopher and politi- 
cal writer, a materialist in philosophy, and a partisan of absolutism m 
politics. He wrote " Human Nature," " De Corpore Politico," " Levia- 
than." 



310 INDEX 

Holbach, von, Paul Henri (1723-1789). One of the leaders of 
the French materialistic school of the eighteenth century ; author of Sys- 
tane de la nature. 

Hugo, Victor (1802-1S85). The greatest French poet of the cent- 
ury ; author of Les Aliserables. 

Idealism, in philosophy, the doctrine opposed to materialism, which 
admits no other reality than ideas; the doctrine of Berkeley; in general, 
and in the fine arts, the tendency to seek the ideal. 

Irenaeus, Saint (140-202). A Father of the Church. 

Interior tribunal. For interieur, the judgment of the conscience, as 
distinguished from the exterior tribunal, which is the authority cf human 
justice. 

Janet, Paul (1823- ). A contemporary French philosopher who 
belongs to the spiritualist school, a professor in the Sorbonne, and the 
author of a large number of works which have contributed to the revival 
of philosophical studies in France : Histoire de la science politique dans 
ses rapports avec la morale, La Famille, La Morale, Les Causes finales, etc. 

Jouffroy, Theodore Simon (1796-1842). A French philosopher 
of the spiritualist school, particularly interested in psychology and ethics. 
His principal works have been collected in two volumes, entitled : 
Melanges philosophiques and Nonveaicx melanges. 

Justin, Saint (i 14-168). A Christian apologist. 

Kant, Immanuel (i 724-1804). With Leibnitz, the greatest of Ger- 
man philosophers. His principal works are : " Criticism of Pure Reason," 
" Criticism of Practical Reason." Kant denies the possibility of meta- 
physics, but he re-establishes belief in God, in the soul, and in liberty, 
by presenting them as conditions of morals. The school which he founded 
is called the critical, or the critical philosophy, and is represented in 
France by Renouvier. 

Lamartine, de, A. M. L. (1790-1869). A great French poet and 
political writer. The part played by Lamartine in the Republic of 1848 
is well known. Ilis principal works are: Meditations, Harmonies 
poetiques et religcuscs, Jocclyii. 

La Rochefoucauld, de, Francois (1613-1680). A French moral- 
ist, author of the celebrated Maximes, 



INDEX 



311 



La Romiguiere, Pierre (1756-1837). A French philosopher, one 
of the first who reacted against the sensualist tendencies of the school 
of Condillac. His best work is t\\t\i\Q(\ Le^-ons de philosophie. 

Leibnitz, Godfrey "William (1646-1716). A great German phi- 
losopher whose ^doctrines resemble those of Descartes, spiritualist and 
even idealist. His principal works are: Nouveaux essais sur Voitcnde- 
iiiait Jaiinain^2i criticism of Locke's work; Theodicee. 

Lemoine, Albert (1824- ). A French philosopher of the spirit- 
ualist school, a sagacious and penetrating psychologist. 

Locke, John (1632- 1704). An English philosopher, one of the first 
to apply the method of observation and experiment. His doctrine, which 
resembles sensualism, was very popular in France in the eighteenth cent- 
ury, after having been criticised by Leibnitz in the seventeenth century. 
His two great works are : " The Human Understanding" and " Thoughts 
on Education." 

Logic. The part of philosophy which studies the processes of rea- 
soning, the means of arriving at truth and of shunning error ; and which 
treats of scientific methods. 



Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-17 15). French moralist and meta- 
physician, priest of the Oratory, celebrated for his Vision en Dieu, 
whom Voltaire bantered in these lines : 

Lui qui voit tout en Dieu, 

N'y voit pas qu'il est fou. 

His great work, La Recherche de la Verite, contains on the causes of errors 
some parts that are still worth reading. 

Manichaeans. Followers of Manes, a Persian philosopher (240-274). 

Metaphysics. A part of philosophy, differently defined according 
to the schools, but now considered the search for what is beyond ex- 
perience. 

Micromegas. A name invented by Voltaire to designate one of the 
characters of the philosophical romance bearing this name. 

Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873). One of the greatest thinkers of 
modern England, author of " A System of Logic," ** Essays on Political 
Economy," and " The Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton." 

Milton, John (1608-1674). An English poet, author of "Paradise 
Lost," one of the greatest epic poems of modern literature. 



312 



INDEX 



Misanthrope. One who hates men. The title given by Moliere to 
one of his comedies in verse. 

Mnemotechiiics, Whatever relates to the art of improving and 
strengthening the memory. 

Moleschott, Jacob (1822- ). A contemporary Dutch scholar. 

Montesquieu, de, Baron (16S9-1755). A celebrated French 
writer, the author of V esprit des lois. 

Miiller, Friedrich Max ( 1823- ). A contemporary scholar, of 
German descent, living in England, where he has written in English his 
celebrated " Lectures on Language." 

Musset, de, Alfred (1S10-1857). With Lamartine and Victor 
Hugo, one of the three great French poets of this century. 

Naturalism. The system which attributes everything to nature ; in 
the fine arts, the tendency to copy nature without any pursuit of the 
ideal. 

Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727). An English mathematician, natu- 
ral philosopher, and astronomer. It was he who discovered the laws of 
universal attraction and of the decomposition of light; and he shares 
with Leibnitz the honor of having discovered the infinitesimal calculus. 

Nominalism. The scholastic system which asserted that general 
ideas are but names [noniina). 

Noumen. A term invented by Kant to designate, in opposition to 
phenomena, the things conceived by thought. 

Objective. A term in philosophy to designate whatever relates to 
the object, as distinguished from the subjective, which relates to the sub- 
ject or the mind. 

Onomatapoeias. Imitative words which reproduce the sounds 
made by the things which they signify. 

Pantheism. A philosophical doctrine which confounds the universe 
with God and deifies nature. The word was coined about the year 1700, 
by the English philosopher, John Toland. The principal philosophers 
of this school are, in antiquity, Parmenides and the Alexandrians, and, in 
modern times, Spinoza and Hegel. 

Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662). A great French writer and moralist? 
the author of the Pravinciales and Pensees, a mathematician and natural 
philosopher. 



INDEX 



313 



Perez, Bernard. A contemporary French philosopher, who has 
especially devoted himself to the pursuit of pedagogical psychology, the 
author of a great number of works : Les trots p7'emih'es annees dc Poijant^ 
Education des le berceaii, U Enfant de trois a sept ans, etc. 

Pellico, Silvio (178S-1854). An Italian poet, persecuted for his 
liberal and political opinions by the Austrian government. Author of 
Le Mie Prigioni. 

Phrenology. The system of Gall and Lavater, which localizes the 
faculties in different parts of the brain. 

Plato (427-347 B. C.) With Aristotle, the greatest of the Greek phi- 
losophers, the immediate pupil of Socrates, whose doctrines he has not 
always faithfully reproduced, being as much drawn towards idealism as 
Socrates was from it. His ethics, set forth in the Gorgias and in other 
dialogues, is admirable. His politics and his pedagogy, formulated in 
the Kepitblic and the Laws, are in part chimerical. 

Polyanimism. A primitive belief, which ascribes souls to all ex- 
istences. 

Polytheism. A primitive religion, which admits a great number of 
divinities. 

Pope, Alexander (16S8-1744), An English poet, author of the 
" Essay on Man." 

Positivism. A philosophical system founded by Auguste Comte, 
which discards all theological or metaphysical doctrine, and bases itself 
exclusively on the positive sciences. 

Predestination. A theological term signifying the purpo.^^e formed 
by God from all eternity to cast away certain men and to save others. 

Premises. The major and the minor of a syllogism, the propositions 
on which is based the conclusion of the reasoning. 

Rabelais, Francois (14S3-1553). The celebrated author of Ga?- 
gantua and I\intagriiel, a satirical and burlesque romance in which, not- 
withstanding many uncouth fancies, there are presented some profound 
■ views on education. 

Racine, Jean (1639-1699). A great French tragic poet. 

Ravaisson, J. G. F. (1813- ). A contemporary French philoso- 
pher, of idealistic tendencies, author of La Philosophie VAristote, EHabi- 
. tude, and La Philosophie en Fi-ance an xix. siecle. 



314 INDEX 

Realism. In philosophy, a doctrine of the Middle Age, which admits 
as many distinct substantial realities as there are general terms in lan- 
guage ; in the fine arts, the tendency to ignore the ideal and to be content 
with an ex ct description of reality. 

Receptivity. A didactic term, the faculty of receiving impressions. 

Reid, Thomas ([710-1796). A Scottish philosopher, founder of the 
school known as the Scotch, which is especially noted for its psycholog- 
ical and practical tendencies, and for its repugnance for metaphysical re- 
searches. 

Renan, Joseph Ernest ( 1S23- ). French orientalist, author 
and critic, author of Vie de Jesus, one of the most brilliant writers of the 
day. 

Reyer. A contemporary German philosopher, author of a book 
recently translated into French, L'Arne de Venfant, 

Royer-CoUard, Pierre Paul (1763-1S45). A French philosopher 
and statesman. 

Sand, Georges (1804-1876). The illustrious author of a large num- 
ber of romances; the nom de plume of Madame A. L. A. Dudevant. 

Schiller, von, J. C. F. (1759-1805). One of the greatest poets of 
Germany. 

Scholasticism. The doctrines of the scho-lastics or schoolmen, the 
philosophy taught in the schools of the Middle Age, whose characteristic 
was subserviency to Catholic philosophy. 

Sensualism. " The doctrine that all our knowledge is derived origi- 
nally from the senses." 

Simon, Jules (1814- ). A French philosopher and statesman. 

Socrates (470-400 B.C.). The founder of Greek philosophy. 

Sophism. False reasoning which has some appearance of truth. 

Spencer, Herbert (1829- ). A contemporary English philoso- 
pher, one of the great thinkers of the age. His principal works are 
" Education " and " First Principles." 

Spinoza, Baruch or Benedict (1632-1677). A celebrated Dutch 
philosopher, author of a work on ethics in which he has set forth in a 
geometrical form his fatalistic and pantheistic philosophy. 

Spiritualism. " The doctrine that there are substances or beings 
which are not cognizable by the senses, and which do not reveal them- 
selves to us by any of the qualities of matter. . . . Spiritualism, grounded 
upon consciousness, preserves equally God, the human person, and exter- 



INDEX 315 

nal nature, without confounding them and without isolating the one from 
the other." 

Spontaneity. The characteristic of actions which are self- 
producing. 

Stimulus. Whatever is of a nature to determine an excitation in 
animal nature and consequently in moral nature. 

Stoics. A sect of philosophers which sprung up in Greece and 
Rome three centuries before the birth of Christ. The Stoics admitted 
no good but virtue, in opposition to the Epicureans, who placed hap- 
piness in pleasure. The principal moralists belonging to this school are 
Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. 

Subjective. That which relates to the subject, that which takes 
place in the interior of the mind, in opposition to the objective. 

Substratum. A term in philosophy, that which serves as a support 
to qualities, that which exists independently of qualities, which lies be- 
neath them. 

Sully, James. A contemporary English psychologist, author of 
" Outlines of Pyschology " and " Teacher's Handbook of Psychology." 

Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745). An English man of letters, author 
of " Gulliver's Travels." 

Tertullian {160-245). A Father of the Christian Church. 
Theresa, Saint (1515-1582). A celebrated mystic. 
Thierry, Augustin (1795-1850). A celebrated French historian. 
Tyndall, John (1820- ). A contemporary English physicist. 

Universals. A scholastic term, the categories"of general ideas. Five 
universals were distinguished : genus, species, difference, property, and 
accident. 

Vauvenargues (1715-1747). A French moralist, whose Maximes 
refute those of La Rochefoucauld. 

Virgil (69-19 B.C.). The greatest of Latin poets, author of the 
Bucolics, the Georgics, and the JEneid. 

Vogt, Charles (18 17- ). A German naturalist. 

Wolf, Christian (1679-1745). German philosopher, a disciple 
of Leibnitz. 



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